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Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it (Matthew 13:45-46, ESV).
The most expensive commodity in the world is not gold, silver, or dollars. It’s so valuable that the world’s billionaires can’t purchase more of it. We’re discussing time today. We’ve all been allotted an amount of it; we can’t expand it or borrow some from others.
But I have a theory of how to best manage our time — “The OG* Theory of Time Management!”
Each hour on earth is a gift from God. Psalm 139 indicates that God numbered our days before we were born. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:16, “Redeem the time” (KJV)! The Greek word for “redeem” in the New Testament comes from a word meaning to purchase something of value in the marketplace.
When we redeem time, we are purchasing our Pearl of Great Price!
There are two epochs in the management of time. Before the Industrial Revolution, most people lived in rural areas and did what needed to be done from sunrise to sunset, with almost no rest. After the Industrial Revolution and the advent of hourly wages, time became valuable. The modern view of time management began in the early 1900s, when time began to be equated with money.
In this new era, most people live in cities working themselves to death with hours of work and no play, few vacations, constant overtime, and doing what others think they should do, and again, with almost no rest.
With both epochs of time usage before and after the Industrial Revolution destroying everyone’s peace (except for the Eli Lilly Company that manufactures Prozac®), we now live with digital apps of time management that display on our Apple® watches, telling us our heart rate, monitoring our sleep, how many steps we’ve walked, and items on our to do list — requiring hours of vigilant app management.
We now do what AI tells us to do, with the same result of no rest.
ARRRGGGHHHG!
The solution? In the “Parable of the Pearl of Great Price,” Jesus gives important advice on time management — a merchant with probably too many pearls, in fact, so many pearls that he couldn’t keep up with them all, finds one pearl of great value, a one-of-a-kind pearl. For that pearl merchant, it’s more valuable than all his other pearls combined. He sells them all, reduces his inventory, loses his stress, and focuses his life on one pearl.
Do we say things like, “I don’t have enough time,” or “I need 28 hours today,” or “Cats just lie around all day with no worries whatsoever”? Jesus also said about time management, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and all things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
That’s it — “The OG Theory of Time Management” borrowed from Jesus. Of knowing God’s calling and pursuing it with everything that we have, and when we do, we experience the promise of Philippians 4:13 that, “[We] can all things through Him who strengthens [us].”
Rest at last!
*Old Guy