Read Ephesians 5:15-19

I’m passionate about time management. I want efficiency and effectiveness. In fact, a weakness of mine is books on the investment of my time. Books that tell me how to replace being busy with being effective. Books that caution me to think things through before plunging into them.

Thankfully, God’s Word speaks straight to the heart of that issue. The apostle Paul wrote about it in his letter to the Ephesians:

Be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. (Ephesians 5:15–19)

Passages in the Bible like that always grab my attention. An alarm inside my system goes off whenever I sense a waste of energy in what I’m doing—when there is some leak in my time-dike I have failed to plug. Without wanting to be neurotic about it, I get a little nervous when I think I am not living purposefully, when I am failing to make the most of every opportunity, as Scripture so clearly commands.

We absolutely cannot get this wrong when we live in full surrender to the Holy Spirit—that means humbly bringing our lives, attitudes, calendars, and everything else before Him and asking for His perspective.

That attitude is a first step and a major secret to living above our circumstances rather than under them. Take a few moments to humbly surrender your day to the Holy Spirit, and see how He makes the most of your time as you follow His lead.

Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord...Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.