Your Time is Your Life

“Your time is your life.” It’s a fairly simple statement. If I were to show my life detailed in a day-planner, at a glance it would appear that I am a busy individual. It’s true, in fact, that I am busy. It is only when the details of that day-planner are dissected that an accurate picture of my life can be drawn. Some of the details may look a little like this: I spend time going to work to earn a comfortable living for myself, going to the gym to feel better about myself, cooking food to feed myself, reading books to educate myself, watching the television to entertain myself, attending church to improve myself, hanging out with friends to connect myself, and sleeping to rest myself. Yes, there is a copious list of activities that keeps me busy around the clock. I am busy living MY life.

My neighbor across the hall is busy too. She is a single mother of four working two jobs to support her young children. Every day is a struggle to ensure there is food on the table and a roof over their heads. She is busy worrying that the thin walls aren’t enough to cover the sound of her tears as she cries herself to sleep every night. She scuttles by, unable to make eye contact or return a smile for fear that her façade might crack, betraying and unleashing the emotions that lie just beneath. Meanwhile, I am busy living MY life.

Then there’s the elderly gentleman living in the nursing home I drive by every day on my way to and from work. He is consumed with the clock as well. Every tick echoes off the white walls of his sterile room serving as a reminder of his loneliness. He waits to hear the ringing of a telephone, anticipating a call from his daughter living hundreds of miles away; a call he is never going to get because she is too busy with her own affairs. He gains hope when he sees the handle on the door turn, only to find that it’s just the nurse’s aide shuffling in to give him his medication, check him off the list and continue on with her rotation. His body may have slowed, but his mind is still busy remembering a life he once lived. Meanwhile, I am busy living MY life.

The guy who bags my groceries; he has a busy lifestyle as well. He spends his nights hopping from one rave party to another, searching for the next “fix” to numb his mind. He tries to forget the reality of his youth, but the haunting memories of abuse plague his every step. Time only victimizes his thoughts, offering no escape, little hope, and empty tomorrows. He fights with the decision to allow time to continue its cutting pain, or to cut his time short and leave it all behind, definitively. Meanwhile, I am busy living MY life.

“Your time is your life.” Turns out it’s not such a simple statement. While it is not my heart’s intent to spend my life busying myself with frivolous tasks centered on ME, my execution sometimes fails to follow my intentions. As the saying goes, “in order to live a life OF purpose, you have to live life ON purpose.” Changing how I spend my time will change how I spend my life. I was made BY God, FOR God, to share the love of Christ and serve as a vessel for Him to change the lives of those around me. My life is not mine. It belongs to Him and that requires a conscious decision to leave MYSELF behind. My life cannot be the same…it will not be the same.

“My children, our life should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.” - 1 John 3:18