It's almost 9:00 am. Austin is at school. Michael is at work. Mom just left for work about 30 minutes ago. I finally have some quiet time (minus the occasional barking dog). This is one of my most favorite times of the day. A couple of weeks ago, Window World came and installed some new windows in our house. I especially love the new one in my bedroom, as it's a nice big bay window that opens on both sides. I can now sit in my room with the windows open and listen to the birds chirp and sing while I have my daily quiet time with God.
Speaking of that... I recently fell under some conviction. I realized that I wasn't (and haven't for some time) been devoting enough time to my relationship with God. He's supposed to be our top priority, right? We're supposed to love him more than anyone or anything else on this earth! Do you neither spend time with nor talk to nor try to get to know this person better if you truly love him/her? For those of you who don't know, my current occupation is a stay-at-home-mom, house-wife, and home-maker. I realize that I'm very privileged to have this opportunity and I assure you I do not take it for granted. Although, I don't want you to think I just stopped at high school, got married, had a baby, and just sat back and decided to be what I am today. I did graduate from Southwest Mississippi Community College in May 2011 with an Associate's in Medical Billing and Coding, but haven't been able to find a job in this area yet. I'm thinking of returning to school for Early Childhood Education (what I wanted to do in the first place).
Now that I've chased that rabbit back into its hole (sorry!), I'll get on with it. So, I recently felt the Holy Spirit convicting me that something about my relationship with God wasn't right. I wasn't sure what it was, so I kept on praying. Last week, a piece of the puzzle was revealed when I realized that I wasn't putting time into my relationship with God (or rather not much) outside of church on Sunday and Wednesday. Then I began thinking about tithing. As Christians, we know it ALL belongs to God. He just allows us to use it while we're here on earth. Giving a tithe is just giving back to God what's already His. For those of you who don't know, a tithe is 1/10th of something.
We as Christians are called to tithe. But here's the thing. A tithe can be more than just money. You can tithe your time, your talents, anything, to God. In a way, tithing is an act of worship and thanksgiving and praise to God for giving us the things He has given us, because He has given us all that we have!
Usually, when we hear the word tithe, we think of money. However, this time, it wasn't about money at all. It was about the time I should be devoting to God, but wasn't. So, I set out to find out just how much time per week would be a tithe (with much help from my husband, because I stink at math). After a few calculations, here's what we came up with.
There are 60 seconds in a minute. So, 6 seconds of every minute belong to God.
There are 60 minutes in an hour. So. 6 minutes of every hour belong to God.
There are 24 hours in a day. So, 2 hours and 24 minutes of every day belong to God.
There are 7 days in a week. So, 16 hours and 48 minutes of every week belong to God.
Whew! That's like a part-time job!! But, it's only 2 hours and 24 minutes per day. Then I started to ponder what that would look like in my life...
Our family attends Sunday School and Church services on Sunday mornings. I'll just count that as two hours. Then, we attend Sunday evening services, as my husband and I teach the youth group (we just started a study on the book of Job). So, one hour of teaching and 30 minutes of church service.. So far, that's 3.5 hours just on Sundays. On Wednesday nights, we teach the youth again, but only for an hour. So, all week long, I only spend 4 and a half hours at church. That still leaves me with 12 hours and 18 minutes throughout the week. So what do I do with it? Am I being a good steward of the time that God has so graciously given me? In all honesty, no. I haven't been. Since I have been blessed with being a stay-at-home mom, I feel that God is leading me to tithe my time to Him, since I bring in no income. I know doing so will improve my relationships with my husband, my son, my mom and uncle (who live with us) and with everyone else I come into contact with. So, with that in mind, I laid out a small plan.
Every morning at 6:00 am, I get up to begin packing my 5 year old's snack for school, writing out any checks he needs for breakfast/lunch money, signing anything I need to sign, and sending any notes I need to send. I double check his homework folder and pack his book bag. Michael gets him dressed and together we get him out the door and the bus picks him up at 6:40 am. After that, I fix breakfast for Michael and I. Usually, he has to run out the door by the time I'm done fixing breakfast, so he eats on the go. What if I slowed down just long enough, or even woke up a few minutes earlier or had things more prepared and organized in the mornings so that I could take 10 minutes to read our Open Window daily devotion and have a few minutes of prayer? I once heard a saying, "You should always kneel before you stand." How would my life change (or my attitude for that matter) if I would just take a few minutes when I first wake up to thank God for another day and ask for His guidance?
How can I take it a little further? Sure, an Open Window devotion and some prayer in the mornings are good, but we need more!! The next step comes in reading and studying God's Word. Doesn't God call us to study to show ourselves approved? That means diving into the Scriptures. We as Christians are obligated to know what's in that Book, so that if need be, we can give a good defense. How can anyone expect to defend their faith, if that person doesn't even know the basics? More to the point, how can we lead other's to Jesus if we don't know how to witness to them because we haven't taken the time to study the Scriptures and as a result can't give any answers for their questions? For beginners, I recommend a Kay Arthur study! She is awesome! On another note, isn't the Bible our love letter from God? He is our heavenly Father and he loves us beyond anything you could ever imagine! How would you feel if you were to write a love letter to someone and that person set it upon a shelf to do nothing more than collect dust? More than a love letter, the Bible is our manual for life. If you could write a manual for life for your children and gave it to them as soon as they were able to read, yet they tossed it aside to do things their own way, how would that make you feel? Oh, how we must hurt the heart of our Father sometimes!
As I mentioned earlier, my husband and I teach youth group at church. We have an amazing group of boys (and an occasional girl or two)! Since we're teaching two different lessons on two different nights, a great deal of study time goes into each lesson. On Monday nights, we attend a study on the book of Revelation. It is a Kay Arthur study called Revelation Revealed. It's amazing and we're learning so much! Each week, we have at-home studying to do, which also takes up some time. It's got to be more than that though. A Christian's life is more than just studying God's word and being obedient to the Scriptures; it's about love. The Bible very clearly tells us that God is love. We ought to show others that love. Jesus calls us to be the the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Just something to think about as you go about your Monday.
