The limitations of both time and money is, at its heart, a question of faith in God’s provision. My experience is that churches and Christian organizations often underestimate the role of time and overestimate the role of money in assessing our limitations. This means we often conclude the wrong thing about how God is directing us to redeem the time.
We know God can provide, so we assume that if he hasn’t provided, it’s not his will that we go forward. This is usually applied to money, but sometimes can be in waiting for the right person. But, before we come to that conclusion, we need to check our assumptions against God’s framework and not our own.
This is necessary because our perspective on time and money is shaped by the culture around us, and not by how God has revealed his character in his Word. (See my blog post, Churches Are Talking About Culture on FaithCulture.org)
If we conclude what the problem is before examining our assumptions about time and money, we look for God to answer the problem as we see it. Because we see what we don’t have, we assume God has not provided.
But if our attitudes about time and money are revealed, then our eyes can be open to seeing what he has already provided in places we would have previously overlooked.
There are good theological reasons for this. Our relationship to time is the dividing line between us and God that we feel the most often. God is outside of time, as it is part of his creation. We cannot even think about choices or consequences without taking time into account.
We are largely unaware of how time functions in how we perceive everything. As a result, we naturally assume God “thinks” like we do. We therefore conclude we know his mind in a situation.
But our perception of time is one of our characteristics that is most affected. by culture. As a result, we are often unaware of how our perception of time is different.
In order to see time from God’s perspective we must first recognize how culture is affecting our view of time. Then we can minimize the effect of culture on how we discern how God wants us to redeem the time in ministry.