No uninvited four legged friends this morning – yet.  Carla is having fun canning – she canned another 16 plus half pints of peach butter last night – and wants to can apple butter with different ingredients.  Sometime in the next few days I ‘should’ get my kitchen back in order, right now canning season is disrupting things.

All of the animals are now coming inside, especially at night.  Abbey was the last holdout, she much prefers the garden, but it is getting cold and wet out there, so she came in to sleep.

We are down to just two of our little hummingbirds, the rest have flown south.  I know their lifespan is not all that long, but for the last ten years we have always had two birds stay with us through the winter; I doubt if these are the original two, but there are two.

Since we are on the back side of a hill facing to the west, we don’t get much direct sunlight in the front of our house this time of the year.  Blaze doesn’t really like that – wet cold grass is not his forte, he isn’t spending any time out there unless he can feel the sun.

October is almost over, we have four birthdays coming up this coming week; at least it is easier to remember. 

Genesis 28:20     And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,

²¹ So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God:

²² And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

Many churches preach that 10% of what we make belongs to God and we should be giving Him that tithe.  Some will get into an argument as to what that 10% is, is it before or after income taxes?  Should those on welfare or public subsistence pay? after all most are barely making it as it is.  (We won’t talk about the widow’s mite this morning, remember she gave out of her meager income while the rich man gave from his abundance – and Christ said she gave more than him.)

This morning I am chastised with the knowledge that one of the most valuable things I possess I have not given enough of, either in the past or even the present – my time.

We all know the statement, time is money.  What is our time worth?  Is it what we are paid for our physical endeavors by an employer or other means?  If we work for a specific amount of money, then that is what we are selling our time for – now included in that, of course is our abilities, training, education, expertise.  But is that really what our time is worth?

It is different depending on the circumstances.  A businessman may choose to take home less money than he actually earns and funnel it back into the business so it will grow, or he can hire more individuals and benefit from their labor.  If you are not the employer the Federal and State laws state you must make a minimum hourly wage – but that is just before taxes and in addition to the taxes the employee has to pay, the employer must pay an additional amount to the governments, roughly 25% more than the hourly wage – of course that depends on where you live, but we will use it as a base to make our point.

But is that a fair way to judge how much our time is worth?  If a person values his time away from work more than he does a wage, then it is more difficult to determine what his time is worth.  If a person is ‘under employed’ and by training and education could be doing a much more complicated job, but for some reason can’t obtain that type of position they are under paid for their worth.  Whatever they are being paid for the job they are over qualified for is not what they are worth – but that is what they (actually the position) are worth to the employer.

So if a person is making $10 an hour the employer is paying out $12.50 for each hour.  That doesn’t include any additional benefits the employer may give, such as bonuses, discounts, medical insurance, vacation and/or sick time off, holiday pay, clothing or an allowance, training, and whatever other incentive the employer may pay that comes out of the profits for the company.  Sometime that can be a substantial amount.  So how much is that employee really worth, to the employer and/or to themselves?

We all know employees that give of themselves to their job and perform at the highest level.  We also know those that try to get out of work and slough off.  Because of the minimum wage and/or union contracts both could be making the same amount of money for the position, but one is far more valuable to the company than the other.  What are they truly worth?

Then, of course you have sports figures and movie and TV stars that are making millions of dollars a year.  Is THAT what they are worth?  Are they worth more than the person slinging hash at a fast food place – somebody thinks so.

I am retired, part of the income I receive is based on promises made by the government in my retirement packages – a pension from the state based on my time in service and social security based on the amount of money I and my employers placed into my account over the years.  In effect the money I receive is not from my current endeavors, but my past endeavors.  So what is my time worth?

How about our bodies, what are they worth – according to some the minerals in our bodies are just worth a couple of bucks.  However, if we sold parts of the body on the black market it could be worth several hundred thousand dollars.  We won’t be using them anymore, so what are they worth to us?

One person dies and leaves millions of dollars to his inheritors, another dies a pauper, is worth more than the other?

How do you measure the worth of a person?

I am sure you have noted by now that I have been qualifying worth/time by money.  But what is our time really worth?

We have also heard the statements that time is a coin once spent can never be returned – so we should spend it wisely.  Good advice, what do we spend our time on.  What is the priority in our life and are we spending the appropriate amount of time on our highest priority?

I had a Corrections’ Manager who stepped down from his job.  He wanted to be able to spend more time with his family and even though he left a prestigious position and accepted one that paid less, he did it.  There were dispersions cast on him, many of the employees couldn’t understand why he did it, but his time with his family was more valuable than the compensation of his time in the position he held. 

As a manager I expected him to put in the time to get the job done, that often required more than a forty hour week.  He also had to take additional training, because we had waved some of the requirements on the condition that he take the training within a prescribed time.  He weighed all this and decided his time was more valuable spent with his family than the office.  I might add, he was also an adult Sunday School teacher in a Christian Church – that also took up his time.

I used to say family came first – but we know that wasn’t how it worked out.  Many times vacations and times off were changed because of activity that ‘warranted’ me being on-duty.  I loved my family (and still do!) but the job actually came first, despite my preference for the latter.  We were all active in the church and that is mostly where our social life as a family was although I also had social ‘obligations’ that came with the position I held, again taking me away from the family.

So how do we value our time?  What is it worth?  What do we do with our free time?  Is that activity worth the wages we receive from our job?  Does that then modify what our time is worth?  What about the time we sleep – does that count towards its value?

Jacob said that he was going to give 10% of everything he had, did that include his time? 

If we give 10% of hour time each day, that would be 1440 minutes, 24 hours in a day or about 2.4 hours.  Lot of time, does God demand that; can we afford that?  Let’s go with a more ‘realistic’ amount and subtract our sleeping time from the day, let’s say 8 hours sleep so that leaves a 16 hour day; that is 960 minutes, 10% would be 96 minutes or roughly an hour and a half.  Is that what He wants from us?  In a week, these two would amount to about 14.4 hours for a 24 hour day times 6 – God gives us a day of rest; or about 9.6 hours if we go with 16 hour day.  Is that acceptable?

Okay, we have a living to make, lets say out of the week we have to work 40 hours, not including drive or break times – on a 16 hour day, would be 40 from 96 hours for 56 hours of free time and that would mean if we spend 10% of our ‘free’ time or about 5.6 hours.

What is our time worth?  Do we spend even 5.6 hours a week – not counting Sunday services, as a day of rest – with God?  Do we give Him that much of our time?

If we go with the bare minimum, and I am not saying that is acceptable, it is 5.6 hours, less than one hour a day.  How should we spend it, does praying, studying His Word, meditating on it count?  Or, do we have to actually go out and ‘work’ for Him? 

Is 5.6 hours of a person making $100 an hour – plus everything else – more valuable to God than the person making $10 an hour?  Should we excuse the person making more from ‘hard labor’, because his time is worth more so we give him more prestigious jobs?

To God the answer would be a resounding, NO!  God looks at service and not what we may think we are worth monetarily.  While we look at worth based on how much a person earns, or what power he has, God looks at the heart.  God has jobs to do; we should never be concerned that we are worth more to God than HE knows we are; He will give missions based on our heart. 

The person that gives of all his abilities to whatever task he is assigned is worth more to God than the person who may do the same work, but whose heart is not in it.  We also must realize that every task for God is important.  What we do for a living should only impact what we do for God in as much as how we use those skills to serve Him. 

Obviously an accountant would be a better choice to be a Treasurer of the church than someone who has no financial skills.  However, if a ditch needs to be dug the brawn of the laborer is more important than the intelligence of the accountant.  Both are serving God and both get His blessings, neither are unimportant and God does not deem one person more worthy of His eye than the other simply by their position – He looks at their heart and why they are doing what they are doing.

Time spent with God in the privacy of our closet is important; worshiping Him, praising Him, listening to Him, mediating on His Word in these times is important.  Should that be part of the 10% of our time we give to Him?  Is 10% correct, should it be more, or can it be less - that is not for me to say.  It is an individual decision between the servant and his Master; but in addition to our private time with Him, he expects us to work.

Luke 222:25-27  And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.

²⁶ But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.

²⁷ For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.

God has given us the gift of life.  That life began at conception, was amplified by our birth and reaffirmed by our rebirth when we accepted Christ.  The gift of life is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It is every single day, first for the time He is giving us here on earth, and then for eternity that we have with God.  While the time, here on earth, is ours, we need to remember it is His gift to us.

Luke 1:71-74 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

⁷² To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

⁷³ The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,

⁷⁴ That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,

We have been saved from the enemy of death and eternal life without God.  How much of that gift of life are we willing to give back to Him, in service to Him?

What could be accomplished for Him if every Christian gave 14.4 hours a week, or 9.6 hours or even 5.6 hours?

Later, Art :-)

From the ColumbiaRiverGorgeous
May Our Good Lord Bless and Keep YOU....’til we meet again