THE ART OF UNITY
bought to spend that time with them. People are paid by the hour. Someone buys your time so that you will do a job.
Time is something we all say we wish we had more of. One of the things we need to understand is that just like money, our time needs to be budgeted in order of priority. You need time to develop relationships with people. Jesus places our relational time as number one and two on the priority list—first, time to build our relationship with God takes precedence; second, time invested in our relationships with others follows.
Our abilities or talents are things we love to do, things we feel born to do, such as speaking, writing, music, photography, humor, and creativity. We often take them for granted in our own lives, but we can incorporate these abilities or talents to develop our relationships with others and to promote unity.
We have two choices to spend our time:
- Invest our time and ability in others by providing light to the world for Jesus, by making a difference in our relationships with others, or by making a real impact in a cause or ministry.
Or, we can:
- Reserve our time and abilities for ourselves, for our own enjoyment, to build ourselves up.
When you place your mind on things above—on God, Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit—you will spend less time sulking over what you didn’t get, and more time trying to think of ways to help others get what they need.
Many people who are not believers have a view on Christians where they think the phrase “Christian humor” is an oxymoron. Christians are looked at as terminally serious people, a bunch of hypocrites who tell the world what to do and how to live their lives then judge them if they don’t. They see the body of Christ having difficulty getting along with each other—the disunity —and, therefore, miss the good witness that only comes through unity.
There are many people we come into contact with, and all they really want to hear is, “Your life has a purpose. God has a plan for you. Let me help you find out what it is. Don’t give up!” Many hurting people don’t believe they matter and they need us to put a hand on their shoulder and say a prayer for them. They need our time and our ability to listen and care for them. It doesn’t take much to encourage someone else; taking the time to do it is what matters.