4 Ways to Redeem Your Time

Photo Courtesy of Zorro1968

"Dost thou love life? Then, do not squander time. For that's the stuff life is made of." -Ben Franklin 

So, how do we maximize our use of time? Understand that everyone has the same amount of time, 168 hours a week. The key is what you do with what you have. In order to use our time effectively, we must do four things:

1. Understand our purpose.
2. Determine our priorities.
3. Establish our plans that reflect our priorities in light God's will for our life.
4. Then let our plans determine how we use our time.

What we are trying to do is learn to seize control of our time and in turn our lives. The key here is planning. Some people object to planning. Consider these 3 objections and my responses.

1. Objection: It can limit my freedom if I predetermine my course of action (plan). 

Response: Seneca once wrote, "if you don't know which port you're headed to no wind is the right wind." And Lawrence Peter observed, "If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else." My point? It is better to have a plan which reflects what you want to accomplish than have no plan at all. If your attitude is that you do not want to limit your freedom, and as a result you are unwilling to plan, you are planning to fail. What is it that you want to accomplish?

2. Objection: I’m so busy putting out fires that I have no time for planning. It is as though they simply run from crisis to crisis. I know people who appear to work that way. 

Response: When events are out of control, this is the time when planning is most needed. The presence of repeated crises, may well be a key indicator that planning has been neglected.

3. Objection: There is simply no time to plan. 

Response: Here is a fact. If more time is given to planning, less time (in greater proportions) is required for execution. It is not that you cannot afford to plan. The fact is, you can't afford not to plan.

Bottom line: if we do not plan, we will not control events. If we do not control events, we will accomplish nothing, or we will make matters worse.

For more thoughts along these lines check out my first post on redeeming the time.

Q&A: On Atheism

I recently joined a discussion on Quora: "Is Atheism a crutch for those who can't bear the reality of God?"

The question is awkwardly posed due to the juxtaposition of the rational with the emotional. Atheism, by definition, has “begged the question,” as Aristotle framed it, because it assumes the posture that God (however He may be defined) is non-existent. This is a conclusion based on assumptions reinforced by experience which I would argue no matter how extensive it is still severely limited with respect to the possible scope of that which is indeed knowable. 

Atheists, and anyone else for that fact, ought to consider seriously the complexity of our universe both from a macro and micro perspective. Can any rational thinking human being honestly examining the complexity of life in any or all dimensions seriously conclude that everything we perceive just came into existence ex nihilo? The information, for example, contained in the genetic code of a single human cell in its DNA contains enough specific codified information to fill 8,000 volumes. To me it is an absurd notion to conclude that this phenomenon just happened accidently through some contrived scheme of natural selection. 

It is absolutely intellectually honest to conclude that the extent of design and balance in the universe has no other rational explanation than that some superior being designed it and I choose to call that being “GOD.”

As far as the consideration of the notion that Atheism might be perceived as a crutch for those unable to bear the possibility of the reality of God, I think a better question might be posed: “What evidence would a professing Atheist accept as proof that God just might exist somewhere in the realm of reality that they have yet to perceive or even consider as credible?” 

The notion of “not bearing the reality of God” is an emotional description while Atheism by definition is essentially a rational posture. I do think that it is possible for people to draw conclusions based upon emotions and not reason. Yet, even Anthony Flew, a famous former Atheist, came to a posture of Theism, simply because there is something instead of nothing. He concluded that Theism was a more rational posture not because as an Atheist he could not bear the reality of God, but because Theism, ultimately, was simply a more reasonable posture crutches not with withstanding. 

Any honest Atheist would be better served by taking the position of Agnosticism. Then, again, epistemological issues could be raised which might dictate that some truth claims are more credible than others and that is the subject for another day.