Are You Playing for Keeps With Your Time?

          As I recall moments from my childhood there are a few memories that stand out to me as silly things that I engaged in, which included playing a game called “Pogs.”  Pogs were small thin cardboard collectibles that you would compete against your friends for by using a slammer that would turn them over and make them your possession.  I remember the competitive streaks that would emerge as my friends and I would play against one another to see who could acquire the most new Pogs for our collections.  There were times that it became “heated” as tempers flared as we played for these seemingly worthless pieces of cardboard, but one thing remained certain we were “playing for keeps” every time.

            As I have thought about that silly game that consumed a couple of years of life, I realized that there are several similarities to what I do today in youth ministry.  (So maybe my time spent throwing a slammer wasn’t a waste after all!)  I realized that as I sought to play for keeps with winning Pogs, the same is true with ministry. 

·         I desire to “play for keeps” with the hearts and minds of the next generation as I desire for them to grow and mature into young men/women who walk in God’s path. 

·         “Playing for keeps” usually happens with something important or meaningful and what is more meaningful than the lives/hearts of an entire generation? 

·         Finally, once you have won something for the first time/or again that is meaningful you desire to nurture and care for it, which is what we desire to do with hearts that have been won for God.

Although there is a strong connection in my mind between Pogs and ministry the reason that I believe this game was so impactful to me was because of the time that we spent playing the game, together with friends.  You see, I once had a college professor give me an assignment to help me better understand my use of time.  For one week, we were to journal about how we were spending our time in hourly installments.  At the end of the week, I was tasked with writing a paper about how I could more effectively utilize my time.  Needless to say as a college freshman I found several “wasted” hours.  The professor’s comments back to me have forever changed my life.  He said, “We are all given the same amount of time each day and week, but it is our choice what we do with it.”  Basically, he was telling us that there are no excuses for not achieving what we set out to do in regards to the use of our time if our priorities are set where they need to be. 

Taking this into consideration there are two primary reasons that our time is so important to me.  First, we invest our time into the things that we feel are important or the relationships that we consider important.  Second, time is a valuable resource that we can use however we wish but we cannot save it or recycle it.  We can only use the time that we have been given each day and week.  In other words, our time is very important because how we utilize our time leaves a legacy or creates history that we can be remembered by.

So as you think about your own life and the impact that you can have on your children remember to guard your time.  The time you invest in the life of your child/student has an impact upon their future, so as parents, we must be willing to count down the amount of influence that we have remaining with our students before they graduate, measure out how to most effectively utilize the time we have left, and mark up the accomplishments that we have achieved with our students through our devoted time.  The lives of our children/students are extremely important so we need to be intentional about investing our time into their lives so we can create a lasting history that will impact their lives forever.

We look forward to partnering with you and sharing in this discussion as we seek to impact the next generation with the combined influence of parents and the church!