Jul 2, 2011

Lack of Time! Does it bother you?


It was a class on Time Management. The teacher took a big bucket and filled it with stones. Once it was filled with stones, he asked; ‘Is it full?’ Students replied loudly, ‘Yes.’ But the teacher took some small pieces of stone and filled the gap between the stones. Then he repeated the question, ‘Is it full?’ The students were in a dilemma. They were silent. The teacher took some sand and filled it in the bucket again. The bucket was full and no space left. He asked the question again, ‘Is it full?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ But the teacher was clever. He took some water and poured it into the bucket. The bucket contained the water too.

The professor asked the children about the message they received from the experiment. As it was a class on time management, one of the students understood the point and said, ‘Even those who complain of having no time, can find some valuable time left, if they try.’ The teacher interrupted and said, ‘the moral of this experiment is not so.’

It is because we filled the bucket with big stones first, that we could add more things into it. If you had gone with the small things first, you could have never filled it with big things.

Thus if you find time for important things first, then you could manage your time fruitfully and with ease. Time spent for unnecessary purposes, will take a lot of valuable time away from our life.

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“I have no time to pray, love, speak with others or help others… not enough time to finish up my jobs. These are the complaints of the modern man. Even I had gone through this problem many times. But now I learn that God was not at the center of my life during those tough times. God is the most important factor in our life. Shortage of time is the result of God loosing importance in our life and less important matters finding more importance in our heart. In other words God has given us enough time to take over all the responsibilities that He has entrusted us.

When the Holy Spirit takes control of our life, we can find time for everything. The Holy Spirit helps us to accomplish more things in a short time. Sometime I find it difficult to write editorials for our periodicals. But when the Holy Spirit helps me I can do it even between the intervals of meetings or during a journey. The problem is not time, but the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Busy schedules and lack of time will lead us to spiritual aridity. God is never busy with anything. If we tune ourselves with God in prayer, we could find enough time. If we are not to lose important time, spend time with the most important in our life. Spend more time with God, we will find time to do our responsibilities that He has entrusted us.

Useless reading, unnecessary conversations through mobile phone, fruitless journeys, spending time in day dreams and thoughts of despair… if we could be free from it, we would find enough time for useful and fruitful things. For this we need the help of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray: “Dear Lord, teach me to use my time fruitfully.”

( by Benny Punnathara, taken from www.turnbacktogod.com)

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