Spare Moments
We continued The Game of Life series on Sunday and our stop was night school. The big idea was "keep asking questions." I said that the Great Commandment is 25% intellectual and the word "disciple" literally means "learner." We tend of think of stewardship in terms of time, talent, and treasure. But I think intellectual stewardship is one of the most important forms of stewardship. It's about making the most of the mind (right-brain and left-brain) God has given us. At the end of the day, I think you are what you read. I was thinking in terms of "dead tree" books, but an NCCer emailed me and told me he bought an Ipod not to listen to music, but to download and listen to audio books. He uses his down time and commute time to feed his mind. That's great stewardship! By the way, he's listening to everything from Gulag Archipelago to Wealth of Nations to Thomas Aquinas. He's even learning Chinese! I sincerely believe that the Ipod is one of the greatest discipleship tools to hit the market if Christians would simply think about it the right way. Success guru, Earl Nightingale, once said, "Tape listening is the most important advance in technology since the invention of the printing press. The reason is that almost 100 percent of humanity's six billion people can listen--in their own language--barring only the hearing-impaired." Interesting observation. The Ipod takes it to a new level. An investment of thirty minutes a day listening to a message or motivational tape adds up to one month of forty-hour work weeks of listening and learning and growing! Your car can be turned into a classroom on wheels. The metro can be turned into a classroom on tracks. It's all about redeeming the time. Our "spare moments" add up over the course of a year or decade or lifetime. What we do with our "spare time" is what will make us or break us!
3 Comments:
absolutely!
i get in no worse trouble than when i have too much idle time-
Proverbs 12:11
Hard work means prosperity; only fools idle away their time.
The I-Pod equates to yet another step in the great isolation of man from the world around him. I suppose the I-Pod has some positive purposes, but moderation is key. It's sad when so many in our society don't even know how to walk the sidewalk in silence -- without an i-pod, cell phone, or blackberry to distract.
I see what you are saying...but I think that "I-pod" time is time well spent. When you live in a city, you don't get a 45 minute drive to work to do "you" things. I think what we listen to is very much "us" stuff....the music we listen to or the books on tape we choose to hear. And when you consider 8 hours of your day is spend doing something else...walking with an "I-pod" is pretty much the greatest thing ever. Its release.
Sometimes I see situations much clearer with music. Its like I'm walking around in my own music video. Beautiful things can seem more beautiful and sad things seem more real. Sometimes it helps burn a picture in my brain which helps me to know how to pray at night...to know what to thank him for and remember who and what to lift up and as I pray, I see that man who had no food and the kids playing in street and...
Moderation is key- kudos on that. I-pods can isolate and many a good conversation is lost. But man....I-pod time is so necessary. Its like driving with the windows down but better.
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