The Hours of the Week

Recently, in my Organizational Behavior class, the students and I discussed the mysterious nature of time. (Cory, our lone reader at this point, should disregrd this entry, as he's already heard what I'm about to say. Sorry, Cory, check back tomorrow.) We basically broke down the hours in a typical week according to major time-consuming activities. The results are quite surprising.

For instance, let's say that you worked one full-time job (40 hours), went to school full-time (40 hours; the equivalent of another full-time job, in a teacher's world anyway) and got an unrealistic 8 hours of sleep every night. How much time would you have left over? Obviously, someone who holds down two full-time jobs and gets 8 hours of sleep per night shouldn't have time to breathe, let alone alone kick back and watch a movie or read a book every now and then. But take a look at the following breakdown...

Total hours in a week............168 hours

MINUS

Full-Time Job #1...................40 hours
Full-Time Job #2...................40 hours
8 Hours Sleep Per Night.......56 hours


Hours left over......................32 hours!!!

The question is, what do we do with all of this left over time? One of my students said, "We do the small stuff, like walking and talking." And that's a great point, but keep in mind that a lot of this small stuff is already factored into the full-time jobs.

I take 2 lessons away from this analysis: (1) Be careful to manage the "small things" well, as they are more responsible for draining your time than you might think and (2) quit complaining about how busy you are. Chances are you just don't manage the time you have efficiently enough. Join the club.

Honus Wagner, Erwin McManus, and God's love

Honus Wagner. Odd name, great baseball player. He was one of the first five players ever inducted into the hall of fame. And his baseball card is the most prized card among collectors. One Honus Wagner card sold for $2.35 million this week. Why would anyone pay $2.35 million for a baseball card??

Because it is both rare and ancient.

The combination of being rare and ancient makes the Honus Wagner card nearly invaluable. People will go to extraordinary lengths to own such a card. I would suggest the same is true of God’s love for us. It is ancient, it is rare, and our souls crave it.

Erwin McManus describes God’s rare love for us in his book, Soul Cravings:

“…We’re faced with a dilemma—we can’t earn love, we can’t buy love, and we can’t live without it. We know in the pit of our stomachs that if love is conditional, it can’t really be love at all. We also know that if love is unconditional, we are neither the sources nor the instigators of such love, which again is a part of our conflict. We want what we do not give. We long for what we seem incapable of producing.”

God’s love is also ancient. I’ve heard the Bible described as a love story. From beginning to end, it is a story of God’s pursuit of those He loves. God loved each of us before we were born, before our parents were born, before the creation of the world.

What lengths should we go to in order to gain this kind of ancient and rare love? This incredible thing is this - - none. God’s love is unconditional. We don’t have to pay $2.35 million. We don’t have to do anything to earn His love. But we should go to great lengths in cherishing His love.

I’m sure there were plenty of people who had Honus Wagner cards at one time. Maybe they used them in their bicycle spokes as kids. Maybe they lost them, sold them in a garage sale, or just threw them away. They didn’t recognize the value of what they had.

May we never forget the value of God’s rare and ancient love for us.

Welcome (& Disclaimer)

The Three Amigos - It's a great movie. Could a movie with Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, & Martin Short together be anything less? Comic genuises all of them.

Aaron New, Henry Smiley, & Chris Medenwald are definitely NOT genuises. But if you have found our blog, then you already know this. We are just three friends who have decided to begin a blogging experiment. We will be posting our thoughts on just about anything and everything and we would love for you to join us. Please read our postings as they are intended - they are our reflections, musings, observations, wisecracks, and ponderings (along with a few snide remarks to be sure). We speak for no one but ourselves, and even that is a bit tenuous.

Let the experiment begin.