Word Count: 543

Contact

Christ-Centered Time Management

by   
11/20/2007 / Christian Living

As a lively college-ager beginning to follow Christ, I confided in my youthful energy much more than I should have. I was convinced that the bright flame of my own will-power would never burn out.

During one particularly traumatic semester, I attended college full time, participated in as many church events as possible, studied various biblical subjects and, all the while, stayed up every night studying for a lucrative career as a database developer. I gloried in the fact that I was doing everything I wanted to do, all at once. It seemed like I would never burn out physically. But this flesh-centered faith belied my lacking faith in God.

At that time I had zero passion for databases, yet my zeal to do what I wanted drove me as far as passing four out of five rigorous certification exams, all without ever touching a real database. My death march of momentum seemed to indicate that I could accomplish anything by the strength of my amazing will-power. It wasn't until I failed the final database exam twice that God finally got through to me. Finally, I threw up my hands in exhausted surrender. Though I was determined to destroy myself, God stepped in to pull the rug out from my futile rebelliousness.

By God's grace I gave up. Giving up is a good thing when our goals are blatantly disobedient to God. Following through with our godless endeavors after we know they're godless is like pulling the trigger just for the sake of finishing this one last round of Russian roulette.

I have resisted and still continue to resist God in some of the most basic issues of life, the need for sleep being one of them.

I started out thinking that I was indestructible. But I had to eventually submit to God and this bone-grinding device of His called "time." To us, time is like an oppressive, unstoppable force, but it is a useful tool in God's hand, especially for humbling brazen, little men like me.

So it went, as college gradually faded into the sunset and out of my life, that I started to submit to God in this area. God purposed that there is only so much a man can do in one day.

A self-motivated man might object, saying "But what about all the things I want to accomplish right now?" Answer: Christ is God's eternally better Way to live. Practically speaking, this means God frees people from the false security of cramming as much as they can into their days.

Faith must be a scary thing for people who are in love with control, and rightly so. God turns around every direction that His people choose apart from Him; He dismantles all the projects we undertake on our own will-power. His end goal for our old, earthly ways is absolute demolition.

He brings us to such a low point, He so drastically reduces everything that we once considered gain, that we come to count all our old things, even our life, as loss in comparison with the greatness of knowing Jesus Christ.

Even now we have barely caught a glimpse of an edge of His divine brilliance.

by Patrick Roberts. Find his book and additional material at www.BooksByPatrick.com

Patrick is an average Christ-seeker. His goal is to turn people to Jesus Christ.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! Click here and TRUST JESUS NOW

Read more articles by

Like reading Christian Articles? Check out some more options. Read articles in Main Site Articles, Most Read Articles or our highly acclaimed Challenge Articles. Read Great New Release Christian Books for FREE in our Free Reads for Reviews Program. Or enter a keyword for a topic in the search box to search our articles.

Enter comments below. Due to spam, all hyperlinks posted in the comments are now immediately disabled by our system.

Please type the following word below:

Not readable? Change text.

The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

Hire a Christian Writer, Christian Writer Wanted, Christian Writer Needed, Christian Content Needed, Find a Christian Editor, Hire a Christian Editor, Christian Editor, Find a Christian Writer