Understanding time and money

If you study the Gospels, you will find that a good portion of Yeshu’a’s parables deals with the issue of time and money. The parable of the talents, the parable of the ten virgins, the lesson of the fig tree.

Being conscious of your time on earth focuses your mind and helps you to put things into perspective in a way that facilitates wisdom in a man. Let’s read Psalm 90:12:

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

But how many of us really number our days? How many of us are conscious of the times that we live in?

When we don’t number our days, they creep up on us and feed patterns of worry. And worry is a sin. God does not want us to worry about tomorrow. He wants us to plan for tomorrow, and the best way to do so is to be conscious of time because time was created for this realm.

Did you have this experience in school when you were meant to be reading and studying every day, and you didn’t, and when examinations are around the corner, you start to cram, and you end up passing the tests? Did anybody reading this do this? I did it. Most people, if they are honest, also did it too.

The trouble with that is that you get a degree, but you do not get an education.

It is the same thing when we do not number our days. We grow old, but we do not grow wise.

Now, if you are not conscious of what you are doing with your days, hours, minutes and seconds, you are not numbering your days.

The greater sin with God is to waste time, not money. One thing the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 teaches us is that God hates waste, and He loves productivity. But of all things that can be wasted, the most precious is time. You can always make more money, but since God created creation till today, he has only stopped time twice, in the case of Joshua in Joshua 10:13 and the case of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:11 and Isaiah 38:8. The wisdom that we can glean from these experiences is that time is more valuable than money.

So, never think that you can impress God by giving the best of your money to the things of God while devoting the best of your time to the things of men. God wants your lifetime before He wants your life’s dime!

If you do not know how to make the best use of an average life span on earth, which comprises 70 years on average, how will you be able to make the best use of everlasting life in God’s kingdom? And that is the ultimate purpose of life: preparation for God’s Kingdom.

This was the case of the rich fool in Luke 12:20. He knew how to manage his money but did not know how to manage his time, and God called him a fool.

Money has blinded this world so much that people prefer to number their money rather than their time. Immediately they get money, most people who think they are wise begin to make a budget. A budget is just a plan to use money prudently. But they hardly ever think of budgeting their time.

I’ve studied the habits of wealthy people. There is a difference between a wealthy person and a rich person. Wealthy people control the assets that produce money, while rich people just have money.

Tomorrow, currency can be devalued, and the holder of money becomes poor, but when money is devalued, the worth of assets is recalculated to reflect the new value of money. That’s why the wealthy hardly ever lose their wealth, but rich people frequently do.

So, what did I learn from studying the wealthy?

The basic difference between the wealthy and the rich is that the wealthy budget their time, while the rich budget their money. Since time is more valuable than money, the wealthy devote the best part of their intellectual and spiritual intelligence to managing what is more precious. This ensures that they have a constant supply of everything that time influences.

The rich, on the other hand, spend the best part of their intellectual and spiritual resources managing money and are thus at the mercy of time, which is spiritually more dominant and materially more precious than money.

Have you ever heard of the job title Money Manager? A money manager is someone who manages other people’s money and places them on a budget. Wealthy people in The U.S. and Europe almost always have a money manager.

You know what that does for their wealthy clients? It frees up their minds so that they can manage their time.

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, said.

“My favourite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time”.

He also said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life”.

You see, when even the most intelligent philosophers and entrepreneurs think they have stumbled upon a newfound wisdom, all they do is corroborate Scripture. What Steve Jobs said is just Psalm 90:12 in modern English-teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom!

But many people will not even take the time to read this piece, because it is too long. But they can binge watch TV for 8 hours. And on Sunday, they go to church to bind the spirit of poverty. Bind all you want. If you don’t know how to manage time, poverty will know how to manage you.

By Reno Omokri

Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.