Time Is Not Yours to Conquer: It Is a Gift to Steward
There is a moment in the Gospel of John when two grieving sisters say almost the exact same thing to Jesus. Mary says it. Martha says it. Word for word, the same sentence: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." It is a sentence soaked in grief, in faith, and in something that every human being who has ever watched a clock or a calendar knows deeply: the ache of feeling like time, or even God, has betrayed you. We have all been there. We have all stood at the edge of something painful and thought, if only it had happened differently. If only there had been more time. If only the timing had worked out. If only.
Then we have Jesus, who is being accused and blamed for something, does not abandon Mary and Martha in their grief. He does not dismiss their pain or lecture them about their disappointment or their lack of faith and trust in him. He weeps with them. He is moved. And then, standing before a sealed tomb, before something that everyone around him had already accepted as finished and literally sealed, Jesus calls Lazarus out. That is not a story about time, or grief, or our disappointments and pain being irrelevant. It is a story about what God can do with time that we have already written off.
The Fear Underneath the Busyness
I don't think most of us would think of ourselves as being afraid of time. Or that many of us struggle with an extreme or irrational fear of time; the fear of time is known as chronophobia to be specific. Rather we think of ourselves as busy; too busy. We have full calendars, long commutes, competing priorities, and a phone that is more than happy to remind us of everything we have not yet done, and a distraction from what is right in front of ourselves. But if we are honest, underneath all of that busyness is something that looks a lot like fear; even if it is not chronophobia.
Fear that we will not have enough time. Fear that we have already wasted too much of it. Fear that we cannot fix everything, attend everything, control everything, or postpone the hard things forever. And so we rush when we should be present, delay when we should act, and fill every quiet moment with noise so we don’t have to sit with the reality that we are finite. Time reminds us that we are not in charge. And for people who like control, that is more than a little uncomfortable. These fears are not irrational; they are based in truth. Because we don’t have time to do everything, we waste it, and we don’t control the steady ticking of life's clock.
What Your Calendar Actually Reveals
Here is another uncomfortable truth: how we spend our time is one of the most honest reflections of what we actually value. Not what we say we value. Not what we intend to value. What we actually value. If you look at a typical week and trace where your hours go, you will find a map of your priorities. The things that get your best energy, your most consistent attention, your most protected hours, those are the things that hold the highest place in your life. And that is worth sitting with for a moment, because it may tell you something you were not expecting to hear. Let me be clear: many of the activities that fill our calendars are indeed good things, and worthy of our time.
Paul writes in Ephesians 5 that believers should live not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time we. He connects this directly to gratitude, to being filled with the Spirit, and to giving thanks to God at all times and for everything. The point is not that we should schedule every minute more efficiently. The point is that when we recognize time as a gift from God, we begin to treat it differently. Gratitude changes how we see time. And how we see time changes how we use it. It also helps us navigate the painful parts of our lives, when we experience loss or when things do not go our way, we can give thanks for what was, and know that God is with us.
Wisdom Is Not About Knowing More
Wisdom, in the biblical sense, is not about accumulating information or staying productive; wisdom is about how our experiences and faith shape how we live. Wisdom is partially about discernment and the ability to recognize what matters, what is worth our attention, and what is simply noise. It is the capacity to see past the appealing option to the better one. To know when to work and when to rest. When to hold on and when to let go. When to mourn what is past and when to open our hands to what is still yet to come. Scripture is clear that we don't manufacture this kind of wisdom on our own. It is something we receive from God. We receive it through prayer, through the pages of Scripture, through honest community, and through the willingness to actually listen when God speaks.
Four Invitations for This Week
So what do we do with all of this? Here are four honest invitations worth sitting with.
First, stop treating every delay like abandonment. When things do not move at the speed we want, when answers are slow in coming, when healing takes longer than we hoped, that is not evidence that God has left. Jesus was late by Mary and Martha's calendar. He still showed up. He still called life out of death.
Second, stop treating every limitation like failure. Being finite is not a flaw. It is what makes the present moment precious. If we truly understood that our time here is limited, we would be far more careful about how we use it and far more grateful for what we have been given.
Third, stop treating a full calendar like proof of faithfulness. Busyness is not the same as devotion. Sometimes the wisest thing we can do is say no to one thing so we can say a deeper yes to something else, something that matters more, something that lasts longer, something that actually reflects what we claim to believe, and best used our gifts.
Fourth, give thanks. Give thanks for the time that is in front of you. Give thanks for the time you have already lived, even the hard parts, because God was present in all of it. Gratitude is not denial. It is the decision to see time as a gift rather than a burden, and to receive it as such.
The Story Is Not Over
The resurrection of Lazarus is not just a miracle story. It is a declaration that God is not bound by the timelines we draw or the power of death. Even when we stand before something sealed shut, something that smells like four days of death and defeat, God can still speak life into it. Time is not ours to conquer. It never was. It is a gift to receive, a responsibility to steward, and ultimately something we entrust back to the One who gave it to us in the first place. And in Christ, even the end of our time here is not the end of the story.
Today is a gift. Use it wisely.
There is a moment in the Gospel of John when two grieving sisters say almost the exact same thing to Jesus. Mary says it. Martha says it. Word for word, the same sentence: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." It is a sentence soaked in grief, in faith, and in something that every human being who has ever watched a clock or a calendar knows deeply: the ache of feeling like time, or even God, has betrayed you. We have all been there. We have all stood at the edge of something painful and thought, if only it had happened differently. If only there had been more time. If only the timing had worked out. If only.
Then we have Jesus, who is being accused and blamed for something, does not abandon Mary and Martha in their grief. He does not dismiss their pain or lecture them about their disappointment or their lack of faith and trust in him. He weeps with them. He is moved. And then, standing before a sealed tomb, before something that everyone around him had already accepted as finished and literally sealed, Jesus calls Lazarus out. That is not a story about time, or grief, or our disappointments and pain being irrelevant. It is a story about what God can do with time that we have already written off.
The Fear Underneath the Busyness
I don't think most of us would think of ourselves as being afraid of time. Or that many of us struggle with an extreme or irrational fear of time; the fear of time is known as chronophobia to be specific. Rather we think of ourselves as busy; too busy. We have full calendars, long commutes, competing priorities, and a phone that is more than happy to remind us of everything we have not yet done, and a distraction from what is right in front of ourselves. But if we are honest, underneath all of that busyness is something that looks a lot like fear; even if it is not chronophobia.
Fear that we will not have enough time. Fear that we have already wasted too much of it. Fear that we cannot fix everything, attend everything, control everything, or postpone the hard things forever. And so we rush when we should be present, delay when we should act, and fill every quiet moment with noise so we don’t have to sit with the reality that we are finite. Time reminds us that we are not in charge. And for people who like control, that is more than a little uncomfortable. These fears are not irrational; they are based in truth. Because we don’t have time to do everything, we waste it, and we don’t control the steady ticking of life's clock.
What Your Calendar Actually Reveals
Here is another uncomfortable truth: how we spend our time is one of the most honest reflections of what we actually value. Not what we say we value. Not what we intend to value. What we actually value. If you look at a typical week and trace where your hours go, you will find a map of your priorities. The things that get your best energy, your most consistent attention, your most protected hours, those are the things that hold the highest place in your life. And that is worth sitting with for a moment, because it may tell you something you were not expecting to hear. Let me be clear: many of the activities that fill our calendars are indeed good things, and worthy of our time.
Paul writes in Ephesians 5 that believers should live not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time we. He connects this directly to gratitude, to being filled with the Spirit, and to giving thanks to God at all times and for everything. The point is not that we should schedule every minute more efficiently. The point is that when we recognize time as a gift from God, we begin to treat it differently. Gratitude changes how we see time. And how we see time changes how we use it. It also helps us navigate the painful parts of our lives, when we experience loss or when things do not go our way, we can give thanks for what was, and know that God is with us.
Wisdom Is Not About Knowing More
Wisdom, in the biblical sense, is not about accumulating information or staying productive; wisdom is about how our experiences and faith shape how we live. Wisdom is partially about discernment and the ability to recognize what matters, what is worth our attention, and what is simply noise. It is the capacity to see past the appealing option to the better one. To know when to work and when to rest. When to hold on and when to let go. When to mourn what is past and when to open our hands to what is still yet to come. Scripture is clear that we don't manufacture this kind of wisdom on our own. It is something we receive from God. We receive it through prayer, through the pages of Scripture, through honest community, and through the willingness to actually listen when God speaks.
Four Invitations for This Week
So what do we do with all of this? Here are four honest invitations worth sitting with.
First, stop treating every delay like abandonment. When things do not move at the speed we want, when answers are slow in coming, when healing takes longer than we hoped, that is not evidence that God has left. Jesus was late by Mary and Martha's calendar. He still showed up. He still called life out of death.
Second, stop treating every limitation like failure. Being finite is not a flaw. It is what makes the present moment precious. If we truly understood that our time here is limited, we would be far more careful about how we use it and far more grateful for what we have been given.
Third, stop treating a full calendar like proof of faithfulness. Busyness is not the same as devotion. Sometimes the wisest thing we can do is say no to one thing so we can say a deeper yes to something else, something that matters more, something that lasts longer, something that actually reflects what we claim to believe, and best used our gifts.
Fourth, give thanks. Give thanks for the time that is in front of you. Give thanks for the time you have already lived, even the hard parts, because God was present in all of it. Gratitude is not denial. It is the decision to see time as a gift rather than a burden, and to receive it as such.
The Story Is Not Over
The resurrection of Lazarus is not just a miracle story. It is a declaration that God is not bound by the timelines we draw or the power of death. Even when we stand before something sealed shut, something that smells like four days of death and defeat, God can still speak life into it. Time is not ours to conquer. It never was. It is a gift to receive, a responsibility to steward, and ultimately something we entrust back to the One who gave it to us in the first place. And in Christ, even the end of our time here is not the end of the story.
Today is a gift. Use it wisely.
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