Time-Management & Other Terribly Hyphenated Words

I’m flying right now on an American Airlines plane, headed to Tampa, FL. I was in Missouri visiting Jess and spending time with my parents.

“Spending time” is one of the best figures of speech imaginable I think. Because that’s what you do with time. You spend it, either on good things or bad.

Time is so precious. It’s so precious. It’s time for me to stop wasting it.

Looking at my life, I think many people would say I’ve hardly wasted it. But the only one who knows what you could do is partially you and fully God. In my partial knowledge, I know I could do more.

By “doing more,” I don’t mean I need a longer to-do list or a journal that’s more bulleted. I don’t need time-management strategies or a self-help book geared towards people in their early twenties who are looking to navigate their careers (although that sounds like a very interesting read, one I’d “Save for Later” on my Goodreads shelf, certainly).

What I need is a less disjointed lifestyle. Have you noticed that all those cool, time-management, self-help, to-do list, life-coach specialist-loving freaks are in love with hyphenated things? Words that are broken up and mashed together with only a thin black line?

They’re things that don’t go together, things that don’t naturally flow with each other in a sentence so they have to be smushed into the same word with an awkward grammatical scapegoat (i.e., the hyphen).

Time-management. Managing time. It sounds good, except our time isn’t really ours. Our time here is a gift from the Creator, and trying to pretend that we’re the ultimate rulers of it is ludicrous. The stress it causes, trying to be “time-managers.” Imagine.

Not to say we shouldn’t cherish our time. Guard it. Protect it from roaches and leeches and parasites. But ultimately, it’s not ours. Our time is a loan and it’s one we’re given to love. Our time is like a bonus check at the end of the year that you can either put towards your next car or blow on a cheap cruise with your frenemy Lila who you feel obligated to spend time with since she “keeps in touch” better than you. I mean, it’s your choice.

But what about my time? Or God’s time that he’s happened to loan to me, for an unspecified amount of time?

I am supposed to be done with Promoticon. That’s a relief I’ve finally allowed myself to experience. Jesus has been telling me for a while now that I need to be done with it, but I find a way to finagle and carry it forward. Until this week when I stopped and asked and He answered, “Be done with it.” Lately, he’s been favoring a very literal approach with me. I think He’s finding pretty words don’t always make it through my thick skull.

But now what? That’s been an emotionally grueling one-and-a-half year of my life. Letting it go feels similar to how it felt to let go of my anxiety. Not that it was ever supposed to be mine. I sat on the couch with Ty and told him, “I don’t have anxiety, which gives me anxiety.” The thought. He told me, “Jules, I think you sometimes search for things to be wrong, even when they’re not.” That’s Promoticon, too. I search for problems to fix, and sometimes it’s just not my problem.

I was listening to Alex Hormozi and he said that the most powerful beings are the ones who have the least amount of time between when they speak and when the thing spoken is accomplished. I want to revise that. “The most powerful beings are the ones who have the least amount of time between when they hear a command from God and when an action is taken in obedience towards it.”

Because how would I possibly know what to speak and then create? Without guidance from the Holy Spirit, how will I speak the right things into being?

Beings making beings. Beings making things. Beings creating.

All of it is matter being turned into different matter. Energy changing forms. If God created me and my matter, then I think He’d know best how to direct and redirect that energy.

I have a lot of energy. An incredible amount of it. More than almost any woman I’ve ever met (sorry readers, I’m flowing). But I’m tired of wasting it on stupid things.

Life is so precious. Time is so precious. We weren’t really given talents of gold to spend. We were given talents of time.

I don’t know where this is going. These thoughts. They may only be partially correct. I know there’s at least some truth here, but I felt led to say it. Write it down and see what happens.

I know it’s time to share. It’s past time. I cannot do it perfectly, but I’m supposed to just do it. God didn’t call us to be perfect Christians, but Christians.

And sometimes, I even question that. But I also don’t know everything. I know that the Creator of the universe talks to me. Sometimes, I’m not sure why He does so, and does it clearly. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s the only way. And then, I see what others believe, how their faith looks, and the lack of solidity. Then I look at the God I’ve met, and what they have just doesn’t measure up.

How can I share it, Lord? How can I share what I have had itching my brain, pressing on my heart, for so long? What is it that I even feel led to share?

I know there is a purpose. There’s a place. And I have to see it through. I want to listen to You and allow You to shape my actions, my thoughts, and my heart. This life is a puzzle I will never have figured out, but I am more than happy to fill in the pieces I can.

Look at all those unhyphenated, beautiful words. All those words make sense together. They’re not made more efficient or severely juxtaposed or broken down. They’re themselves. They’re whole.

Maybe I just hate hyphens.