Time

David Mathis (Habits of Grace) :

One key principle in making our time management Christian is this: Let love for others be the driver of your disciplined, intentional planning. It is love for others that fulfills God’s law (Rom. 13: 8, 10). Sanctifying our time godward will mean spending it on others in the manifold acts of love. Good works glorify God not by meeting his needs (he doesn’t have any, Acts 17: 25), but through serving others. As Martin Luther so memorably said, it is not God who needs your good works, but your neighbor. 

When we ask that God teach us to count our days, this is the lesson we learn time and again. One way to make it practical is to schedule the time both for proactive good in the calling God has given us and reactive good that responds to the urgent needs of others. Learning to let love inspire and drive our planning likely will mean fairly rigid blocks for our proactive labors, along with generous margin and planned flexibility to regularly meet the unplanned needs of others.

Without scheduling, we will falter at the proactive; without flexibility, we’ll be unavailable for the reactive.