In Ephesians 5:16, Paul helps us to see time differently, so we can use it wisely. He told the Ephesians to “redeem the time.” What did and does it mean to redeem the time? In Greek, there are two words for time. The first is chronos - where we get our word chronology. Chronos is sequential time, moving time, chronological time. The other word is kairos. Kairos can be translated as a fixed moment in time. It is leveraging opportunities, that God brings our way,  in order manifest our faith and his presence in the world.

When Paul said: “redeem the time,”  he was not talking about buying up or buying back minutes in time, but taking advantage of moments of significance within those minutes. Every minute is a potential moment of significance. Every hour is an opportunity for God to explode it with eternal value and purpose. Biblical time management is not so much a matter of controlling the clock and calendar, but capitalizing on God-given opportunities. 

Call, text, email someone to encourage them 

Pray for someone 

Share your faith with a co-worker, neighbor, friend 

Use your gift

Get involved in your neighborhood 

Open up your home 

Start a movement 

What about you? What other ways can you take advantage of the opportunities that God gives you on a daily basis? How can you do a better job in “redeeming the time?” Who, in your sphere of influence, could benefit from you “redeeming the time?”

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If you look closely at a grave maker in a cemetery, you will see a couple of important things. You will see the person’s name, a favorite verse, and maybe a picture of some sort. However, those things are not the most important parts of the grave marker. The most important parts of a grave marker are not words and pictures, but a line, dash, a hyphen. That little line between your birth and death is the most important emblem on the marker. The date of your birth is significant, but it is not the most important because you really had no control over that. The date of your death is significant, but not the most important because you really don’t control that either (unless it is self-murder). The only part of the marker we have control over is that two inch dash between them. You see, embedded in that two inch dash is all of our life – our hopes, our dreams, our decisions (wise and foolish), how we used our time and how we spent our money, what we spent our life on or what we spent our lives chasing. The bible talks about us living three score and ten (that’s seventy years) and if God is gracious, we might see eighty years. I did the math. If we live 70 years, that translates to 25,550 days. Here is the equation: 70 – your age = x. Now multiply the sum by 365, and you will get the number of days left in your dash. Now this is a broad stroke generality. I know this is not something you wanted to think about on a Monday morning, but I am writing this post to encourage you to spend your dash wisely. Our days are too important to spend them on frivolous trivia (although I know this is par for the course), pettiness, and scarcity thinking. Because our time is precious, we must value it and spent it on precious things – spending quality time with our heavenly Father and the people we love, hugging spouses and our kids just a little tighter each day (i know we want to hug them tighter to kill them most times for their foolish choices and ungrateful attitudes), experiencing the wonders of God’s good creation, making love to our spouses for seven straight days (Thanks Pastor Ed Young), using our gifs to bless as many people as we can, serving those in need, laughing a lot, enjoying good food, watching the sunset (i got to move to warmer climate), and so many other Bucket List kinds of adventures. Approach each day with your dash in mind. So when you and I get to the end of our lives, people will be able to say and see that we spent our dash well.

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