One of my biggest spiritual struggles is with time.
There are times when I treat time as a god. As if I can appease time and then time will reward me.
There are other times when I think I should be god over time. Where if only I can master the productivity manuals and to-do list systems, then my life will be in order. If only snow days and illnesses and dawdling never happen, then all will be well.
But I am not the god of time. And time is not a god.
God is the creator of time and the Lord of time, and I may well spend my life bumping up against this reality. I hope and pray, I will also spend my life surrendering to this reality more readily. In time.
Earlier this week Jen Pollock Michel’s book, In Good Time: 8 Habits for Reimagining Productivity, Resisting Hurry, and Practicing Peace came out, and for all of you who are wrestling as I am with the push and pull of getting things done and having enough time, I commend it to you. As I wrote to endorse this book before it came out:
“In Good Time is for all of us who imagine that the solution to our anxiety lies between the covers of the next great time management book. Jen Pollock Michel’s wise and gentle reflections on learning new habits of being and receiving the lives we have been given are a balm for every soul weary from the relentless pursuit of productivity.”
I’ll have a chance to talk about time for the next two episodes of my podcast (first with James K. A. Smith about his latest book, How to Inhabit Time, and then with Jen about In Good Time). I want to enter 2023 with a perspective on time shaped by the truths these authors offer. That time is a good gift we can steward well, for the good of our lives and the good of our world.
More with Amy Julia:
- Summer Sometimes Feels Wasted, and then…
- Is There Time To Go Away for a Retreat?
- S5 E22 | Disability and the Speed of Love with Dr. John Swinton
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