Living Intentionally

What’s Next?

Last week we wrapped up our “Best Deals for the Single Season” series within a series. Tomorrow we’ll tackle the issue of time (or lack of time) for moms with young kids.

But speaking of time, the folks at the Next 2009 Conference have a question:

“When was the last time you set aside time for what is most important? For the person who is most important?”

They want to invite the younger generation (single and married) to gather to worship Christ, study his Word, and to rediscover who he is and what he has done.

Make the best use of your time and join Next 2009 on Memorial Day weekend.

"Spend four days beholding Jesus Christ.”

Best Deals of the Season

If it’s true that our lives are made up of God-ordained seasons, and that each season holds out many opportunities—or to use our shopping analogy, bargains—but that only some are really worth buying, how do we know which to grab and which to pass up?

“The way we should go and the thing we should do” (Jer 42:3) is found only by prayerful study of God’s Word. In Scripture alone are the signs marking the true bargains for each season of our lives.

So what are they? What are the best deals for teenage girls, single women, moms with young kids, the empty nester?

Over the next few weeks we’ll consider this question, beginning with teenage girls (and their moms). We’ll study Scripture to learn how to “walk carefully” and “make the best use of [our time]” in each of these seasons.

Along the way we want to hear from you: How have you learned to buy up these deals in this season of your life? Or, to put it more plainly, how have you made these God-ordained opportunities the top priorities in your life?

Shop-talk for teenagers starts tomorrow.

God of Our Seasons

Scripture provides ample evidence that God sets the boundaries for each season. God determines when one closes and a new one begins. He is in complete charge and sovereignly rules over every season of our lives. And his purpose for our lives in each season ultimately cannot be frustrated.

Proverbs 16:9 declares, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”

Nebuchadnezzar said about God, “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4;35).

The prophet Jeremiah professed, “ I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not man who walks to direct his steps.” (Jer. 10:23).

All too often, we arrogantly think we are in charge. We imagine that we’re planning and deciding our life’s course. Who are we kidding? We need to humble ourselves and acknowledge, “God you are in charge. And I humbly accept your plan for the changing seasons of my life.”

We can trust this God who is in charge because we know his purposes are always directed for his glory and our good (Rom 8:28). As author Elisabeth Elliot insists, “Everything that happens to you has come through the hedge of His love.”

What comfort and rest this brings to our hearts!

As we seek to make the best use of time in every season, we can be confident that God’s divine wisdom and perfect love direct his purposes in our lives.

But maybe you’re still wondering: what does it look like to make the best use of time in my season?

Next week we’ll suggest some of the best bargains to be found in the different seasons of our lives.

We hope you’ll find a few deals that are too good to pass up!

(This week's series was adapted from our book, Shopping for Time)

Changing Seasons

Think back five years ago. Was your life different from the way it is now?

Maybe you weren’t even a Christian at that time. Perhaps you have since gotten married or graduated or changed jobs or moved to a new place or had a baby (or two or more!). You may have experienced a life-altering tragedy or a surprising success.

Even if you don’t feel as if your life is dramatically different, change has occurred, however imperceptibly. You’ve probably walked through relational changes, experienced physical changes, learned new skills, or developed new interests.

Most significantly, if you are a believer, Christ has been conforming you to his image. Undoubtedly your life is different from the way it was five years ago. And the same will be true five years from now.

That’s because our lives are made up of changing seasons.

It tells us so in Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (3:1). This passage goes on to list fourteen couplets that cover the range of human activity.

Our lives are never static or stationary. New seasons keep rolling in—each with its own unique joys and challenges. In fact, just about the time we adjust to our present season, it’s time to make way for a new one!

A woman may pass through many seasons in her lifetime. Here are a few:

Childhood
Adolescence
Singleness
Marriage
Childbearing
Mothering preschool children
Mothering school-aged children
Mothering teenaged children
Empty-nesting
Menopause
Caregiving to elderly parents
Grandmothering
Widowhood

This is not an exhaustive list. There may be additional seasons you will experience and ones you will never pass through. For example, certain women may remain single throughout there lifetime, and not every woman will experience widowhood.

But we must understand the reality of our changing seasons if we want to “look carefully how we walk” and “make the best use of our time.” For the best deals vary from season to season. Last year’s bargain might be this year’s foolish purchase.

So, we must walk through each season with open eyes in order to make the best choices.

But our comfort is this: God orders the seasons of our lives.

Tomorrow we’ll consider this truth.

Good or Best?

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” Ephesians 5:5-16

The phrase, “making the best,” means to “buy up, rescue from loss, or improve” the use of time. It is a metaphor taken from the merchants and traders of the ancient Near East, who aggressively pursued the best deals when they would buy, sell, or trade. (We told you this idea of “shopping for time” comes straight from Scripture!)

The idea of this verse is that we are to approach life in the same way we go after bargains. We need to discern the best opportunities life has to offer. Then we must seize those opportunities and make them our highest priorities.

Every day presents us with countless options for how to spend our time. However, only some are truly great deals. Only a few things are really important.

Our job is to figure out what those prime deals are—these key opportunities—and devote all our time and energy to them.

This means choosing not to do a thousand other things. It means saying no to a lot of enticing options.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Obviously, we don’t want the “bad deals” to keep us from what is truly valuable. We don’t want sinful pursuits to deter us from what is God glorifying. But it’s often the good things such as a ministry opportunity, a relational pursuit, a money-making venture, a leisure activity, or a hobby that hinders us from making the best choices.

It’s frequently the good things that distract us from the best things.

So how do we learn to spot the best deals and ignore the bad ones? What are the secrets to discovering life’s most excellent bargains? In the coming days, we will discuss how to become savvy shoppers of time.

But first there is one fundamental principle we must understand. We’ll consider it tomorrow.

Look Carefully

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” Ephesians 5:5-16

Look carefully. It’s a sobering command, is it not? It means that we are to walk with the utmost accuracy, with extreme care, with caution.

We are not to trudge blindly or routinely through our days. We shouldn’t just let life happen and try to deal with the results, be what they may. We should not allow one day to flow into the next, being concerned only with the present moment.

No, we must look around. We must develop keen eyes. We must examine our lives. We must evaluate our present manner of living and consider how to prepare for the future.

After all, we wouldn’t dream of sauntering through a clothing store with our eyes closed, picking up whatever we touch, placing it on the counter, and hoping it would turn into a wardrobe. No, we carefully walk through the store with our eyes wide open. We consider style. We study the price tag. We evaluate quality.

This verse in Ephesians tells us to live the way we shop—carefully.

It means we look…

backward on our life thus far, so that we might avoid past errors and repeat former victories;
forward to consider where a plan or course of action may lead;
inside our hearts to examine our motives and the reasons for the choices that we make;
around and take stock of our present fruitfulness;
beside us for critique, help, and wisdom from fellow believers;

and most of all…

Look up and seek guidance from our Heavenly Father through prayer and His Word.

This is how to be intentional, purposeful, and, as this verse says, wise in the way we walk.

Life’s Best Bargains

We women take our shopping seriously—especially in these tough economic times.

We scour the Sunday paper for coupons and sales. We haunt thrift stores. We track down bargains better than a hound dog on a scent. We’re experts in our trade. We know which time of year to shop for what items. We know which supermarket has the best produce and where to find the best deals online.

The reality is, however, we don’t often manage the time God has granted us on this earth with the same intentionality or skill that we bring to shopping.

While we constantly—almost unconsciously—plan, evaluate, strategize, and make wise choices when shopping, we often neglect to do so with the most important matters of our lives.

We wouldn’t dream of going to the grocery store without a shopping list, or buying a car without haggling over the sticker price, or purchasing new shoes without checking the price tag, but we throw away our time as if we had an endless supply.

As a result, we often miss out on the best deals life has to offer and end up paying big time in guilt, anxiety, and a lack of confidence that we’re really doing the will of God. More often than not, we’re overwhelmed by life’s choices and demands. Perhaps, most unfortunately, we lack fruitfulness in Christ’s kingdom.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. We can know for certain that we are doing all God wants us to do. Peace and joy and rest can be an everyday experience. We can live a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called (Eph 4:1).

How? By becoming shoppers of time. This isn't our bright idea. It comes straight from Scripture. Ephesians 5:15-16 tells us how to live like we shop: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

This week we'll consider what Scripture means when it tells us to shop for time.

That We May Grow

Prayer.

Preaching the gospel to our souls.

Reading.

Rising early.

These are our simple goals for growth.

Yet we cannot fulfill any resolution apart from the grace of our Triune God.

So we pray:

"Father, I pray today that you may count us worthy of your calling. Enable us to become increasingly holy, self-denying, loving, full of integrity, steeped in the knowledge of you and your Word, ever delighted and eager to trust and obey you. We are not strong enough or disciplined enough to live up to your calling on our own. But I ask that you will so work in our lives that we may grow in all things that please you so that you ultimately judge us to be living up to the calling that we have received....Lord Jesus, thank you that you are transforming us into your likeness with ever increasing glory by your marvelous grace. It is only by your grace that we can become fruitful. It is only by your grace that we can persevere. It is only by your grace that we can mature. It is your grace that enables us to love others more. It is your grace that enables us to cherish holiness and a deepening knowledge of God. Therefore I ask all these things on the basis of your grace.” (DA Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Chapter 3, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, emphasis mine)

Growing in Rising Early

This year, with God’s help, I am going to rejoin The 5 AM Club. Yes, I confess that I let my membership lapse for a while. Two moves threw me off schedule, and even after settling into our current home, I still put it off. However my mornings were hectic instead of peaceful, and I knew that re-resolving to rise early each morning would serve me and my family. Now that I'm back in the club, I’ll be able to have a quiet quiet time, get Andrew out the door for school in a peaceful manner, make a real lunch for my husband, and be prepared for the day with my younger two.

This is not an easy resolution for me. It’s especially painful during the first groggy fifteen minutes after I wake up. But the benefits of rising early keep rolling in all day long.

If you don’t know what The 5 AM Club is, or want incentive to get up early yourself, you can revisit our posts on this from several years ago (as you can see, we’ve changed the name slightly since then), or you can read chapter three from our book, Shopping for Time.

The 5:00 Club
5:00 Club Q&A
A Wife Joins the 5:00 Club
College Girls Join the 5:00 Club

Growing in Reading

Starting the New Year with two kids has me wondering what I did with all my time when I only had one. Accomplishing anything more in a day than keeping my family fed and clothed requires some serious strategy.

As I consider the year ahead, one of my goals is to read more beyond the reading that I already do in my quiet time. Yet my nights are full of interrupted sleep (Like last night when MJ had a cold that made her sleep fitfully and we lost power for two hours during which Caly was wide awake waiting “for the workers to fix her fan.”) And the days can be long and hard. (And yes, I know what you moms with more than two kids are thinking right now!)

Given my season, I can’t imagine carving out an hour each day for more reading. Even 30 minutes seems a bit scary. I have tried this before and failed. But thanks to John Piper I’m reminded that a very small daily investment can yield a big return.

He recommends setting a goal to read for 15 minutes a day:

“Suppose you read slowly like I do--maybe about the same speed that you speak--200 words a minute. If you read fifteen minutes a day for one year (say just before supper, or just before bed), you will read 5,475 minutes in the year. Multiply that by 200 words a minute, and you get 1,095,000 words that you would read in a year. Now an average serious book might have about 360 words per page. So you would have read 3,041 pages in one year. That’s ten very substantial books. All in fifteen minutes a day.”(When I Don't Desire God, p. 129)

I’m sure I read more slowly than Dr. Piper, but thinking about it this way helps me see that even with only fifteen minutes a day, I can accomplish something significant this year. Even with two kids, two and under, I can read ten good books!

So, my plan this year? Read 15 minutes each day during the first part of Caly’s play alone time in her room. If I miss that slot than I will try to make up for it right before I go to bed. My prayer is to make this a lifelong habit that will increase my love and passion for my Savior.

Growing in the Gospel

One of the ways I want to grow this year is in preaching the gospel to myself every day. Milton Vincent, author of A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God's Love (which we’ve recommended before here at girltalk) describes how this discipline has affected his life:

Over the course of time, preaching the gospel to myself every day has made more of a difference in my life than any other discipline I have ever practiced. I find myself sinning less, but just as importantly, I find myself recovering my footing more quickly after sinning, due to the immediate comfort found in the gospel. I have also found that when I am absorbed in the gospel, everything else I am supposed to be toward God and others seems to flow out of me more naturally and passionately. Doing right is not always easy, but it is never more easy than when one is breathing deeply the atmosphere of the gospel.

So I can breathe more deeply the atmosphere of the gospel, I’m taking the month of January to memorize a portion of A Gospel Primer entitled “A Gospel Narrative” (written in the prose format). It’s a list of forty-one gospel truths derived from Scripture. I’m convinced this little memorization endeavor will help me to apply the truths of the gospel to my life on a daily basis and experience the benefits Mr. Vincent describes.

Last January I only made it through number eight before I abandoned my goal. But I’m trying again.  This time I decided to recruit some help. So the previous Monday when the girls and I were together, I asked them to join me. They eagerly agreed. I hope that having others memorize with me will provide fresh incentive to reach my goal.

Would you like to join us? Even if you only make it through number eight it will be well worth the effort. For this discipline of preaching the gospel to yourself every day can make “more of a difference in [your] life than any other.”

Growing in Prayer

Last Monday afternoon Kristin brought our favorite Greek salads to Mom’s house and we sat around her kitchen table for the afternoon—you guessed it—talking. At our request (or more accurately, our pathetic pleading) Mom agreed to give us girls one day each year to help us evaluate our lives and get that "older woman” wisdom we so desperately need.

Don’t misunderstand--we call Mom for advice almost every day. But this day is special. It’s when we take time to evaluate our priorities and consider how we can grow in biblical womanhood over the coming year. We always begin with our relationship with God, for nothing serves our husbands and children more than a wife and mom who is consistently seeking God through His Word and prayer.

It is prayer that has always been a weakness for me. I suspect I’m not alone in this. But I’ve been inspired by the example of my husband and my mom as I’ve watched them grow in prayer; and I’ve been aided by the verses and prayers that others use.

My collection swelled this January as I added many verses to my prayer list. I have three people to thank for that.

1.    Our pastor, Mark Mullery, who preached a sermon from Ephesians 3:14-21 where he showed us two prayers we can pray for “any Christian at any time in any situation.”
2.    John Piper, who posted 9 Ways to Pray for Your Soul and linked to a past post by…
3.    John Bloom who presented a list of prayers for our children.

Add these verses to your collection and may many prayers for us and our loved ones reach our Heavenly Father’s throne this year.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.” Ephesians 3:20-21

Not Just Another Christmas List

Take Fifteen

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Ephesians 5:15-17

Here’s another time-saving tip for the holidays: Take fifteen minutes at the beginning of each day to plan. Planning for a few minutes each morning can significantly affect the trajectory of your day, and thus your holiday.

I base this claim on a businessman’s helpful little rule, the 15:4 rule:

“Spending fifteen minutes thinking about what you are going to do before you start will save four hours of wasted time later on. Any individual who has thought through her workday, set priorities, and organized the days’ tasks is likely to accomplish far more than someone who randomly moves through the day.” (James W. Botkin)

Four hours a day is a lot of time! If fifteen minutes saves me even one hour a day, it’s worth it. Point being: when we deposit a few minutes into morning planning, we’ll yield significant returns in time and productivity all day long.

Ignore this little rule, however, and we potentially throw away time that was free for the taking. Not pausing for a few minutes to plot our days’ course is like going Christmas shopping without making a list. We would undoubtedly forget someone and waste a lot of time going back to the same stores to purchase more gifts.

On the other hand, if we’re faithful to plan first thing each morning, we’ll conserve loads of valuable time. We may realize that our hair salon is in the same shopping center as the post office or figure out that we can order a gift online instead of going to the store. Or we may plan to call a relative during our Christmas baking (although my mom and sisters wouldn’t recommend this time-saver for me!).

If we make the 15:4 rule a daily ritual this December, imagine how much time we’ll save!

Surviving the Season

Last Monday I went to the craft store in search of Thanksgiving stickers for the nieces and nephews. It was still three days until Thanksgiving, but the harvest decorations were on the clearance rack and it took me fifteen minutes to find a few, lame pumpkin stickers underneath the mounds of Christmas stuff. The store was packed with people whose carts were full of Christmas lights and wrapping and gifts.

I wasn’t even close to being ready for Thanksgiving, and now I was already behind on Christmas!

Here on December 2nd, the outlook still isn’t good. I only have a handful of gifts and about 3 hours available between now and the 25th to finish my shopping.

Thankfully, I have Mom’s "Three S’s for Busy-Season Survival": Separate, Simplify, and Size-Up. We’ve blogged about them before, but never are they more helpful than in December. I hope they serve you. Unless, of course, you were one of those people at the craft store last week who were ready for Christmas before you sat down for Thanksgiving turkey.