Time Out of Mind

I am thinking about time this morning.  

In my quiet time with Jesus each morning, I tend to journal on how I spent yesterday, and what I expect for today.  But this morning (partly because my children are still sleeping, and it is quiet enough for me to think more deeply) I began thinking beyond the physical details of the days more...to the point of them.  

I realize I feel perpetually guilty about how I am NOT spending my time, and that is a pervasive feeling.  Even when I am perfectly glad to be doing whatever it is I am busy about.  

Surely I am not alone.  There are forever an endless supply of choices for how to spend our time, and it is a puzzle of life to "redeem the time" in the right ways.  

Wouldn't it be grand to live in such a way that I feel peace about my choices in using the time that I have, the time that God has given me?  Not the usual results of appeasing someone, or doing what is needed, or scrambling to stave off the panic of being completely overwhelmed by all the many, many things that are needed--or even the result of pleasure.  

What if I lived in a way, day to day, that resulted in a pervasive, deep PEACE about how I have spent, how I am spending, how I plan to spend MY TIME?  

What a gift that would be.  What true satisfaction that would be.  What a way to think about an intentional life.  

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love...Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true) and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord...'Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.' Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."  From Ephesians 5

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..." Ecclesiastes 3:1  "Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after wind."  Ecc 4:6  "If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, BUT HIS SOUL IS NOT SATISFIED with life's good things...I say that a stillborn child is better off than he." Ecc 6:3  "The end of the matter; all has been heard.  Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." Ecc 12:13-14