I followed for a while an investment podcast that had an inviting hook, “Invest only a couple hours a day of your time and you can really see a difference in your investments.” The subtle idea of course is that you can become rich by spending just a casual few hours a day doing what they were teaching. In and of itself, no biggie. They are sound investment suggestions and a good method for managing your monetary investments. The problem lays in that those couple hours could quickly consume one’s time. I heard the host of the podcast say over and over, “I woke up at 3am and just had to check this idea out.” The guy is rich but he is also consumed with getting more and more money. So much so, when he was loosing money on the market, he became even more obsessed. I sometimes wonder if he ever sleeps.
That is the problem with money, there never is enough of it, what we have we are afraid to loose, and it always takes up our time. We spend a majority of our waking time working, and for the most of us, we work to get money. We would all retire right now if we didn’t need that silly salary. “Time is money” is a common idea that floats around. When we buy into that, our own time becomes so valuable we don’t allocate it for anything except to acquire and manage our money.
God calls us to use our time for something else. His desire for us is that we spend our time seeking after Him and His kingdom, that is, being good King’s kids doing the Father’s work here on earth. When we follow Jesus’ words found in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew we can rest assured that the promise Jesus gives us in that sermon are true. Instead of spending only a couple hours (or a lot) focusing on monetary investments, we need to take that time and invest in God and His kingdom. Take time to pray, read the Bible to get closer to God and then take time to reach out to others, invest our time in people that they may too get closer to God.
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things [your daily needs] will be given to you as well. -Matthew 6:33
