There’s Never Enough Time(?)

I love gardening, and a friend asked me what kinds of things she should plant at her new house. 

“It depends on how much time you want to devote to a garden,” I told her. “I love my flowers, but they are a lot of work. If you don’t enjoy the process, it won’t happen.”

And I listened to myself say these words and contemplated how that’s true about a lot of things.

I’ve been asked several times for advice about starting a blog. “Don’t bother if you don’t love writing,” I tell them. This doesn’t mean that writing isn’t a discipline. There are plenty of times that I have to pick myself up by the scruff of the neck and force my fingers to start moving. But I want to write. I am motivated to do it. So I find the time.

We can complain that there’s never enough time, but the truth is that we find time for what is most important to us. 

Of course, this is generally true, but not always true. We all experience extremely busy seasons where just surviving is the goal. Certainly, some people are exceptions for more than just a season – single working moms, for example, or those responsible for 24/7 caregiving of a newborn or disabled person. But in America, where time is a commodity, we often wear our busyness as a badge of honor. “I’m too busy for that” is an appropriate excuse for just about anything. When we say we’re too busy, we receive sympathetic nods, not judgment. 

But how often do I just use my busyness as an excuse for something I don’t want to do? 

My friend Lauren just ran a half marathon, and it took her an hour or more of running each day to train for it. I thought, “I would never have enough time to do that.” And then I thought, “But I don’t want to find that kind of time.” Honestly, I would rather help an unmotivated tween with algebra, go to the dentist, or scrub the toilet than run for an hour a day.

Besides, my screentime stats tell me I could find an hour to spare if I really wanted to. 

I’ve started mentally correcting myself when I’m tempted to say there’s never enough time. I’m not too busy. I just don’t want to. I don’t care enough. It’s not a priority. 

Of course, no one can do everything. Each of us has only twenty-four hours a day to work with, and we’ve all experienced our finite limits banging up against the walls of time and space. We cannot do everything and must let go of unrealistic expectations of how much we can accomplish. But we can, and do, prioritize. That’s the key. 

It’s much easier to feel like a martyr who is too busy doing important things than to feel incompetent, undisciplined, or unmotivated. Being honest with myself about this helps me evaluate my priorities, as painful as that may be to admit. 

But here’s why this is significant: Because when there are things that I know God wants me to do that I’m tempted to procrastinate or ignore because they are challenging, tedious, or stretch me – whether it’s exercise, the spiritual disciplines, initiating hospitality, having that difficult conversation, taking a Sabbath rest – I cannot allow myself to make the excuse that there’s never enough time. Oswald Sanders wrote, “Each of us has the time to do the whole will of God for our lives.” 

Maybe there’s no time temporarily – today, or even this week. But when I need to do something important, the issue is not usually a lack of time, but a lack of intentionality, planning, or discipline. Time isn’t the problem – I am. 

Related: When Life Feels Like Drudgery