The World's Most Valuable Resource
By Benjamin Siens
I was only 13 years old when I found myself sitting in front of a TV, at my parent’s insistence, watching Dave Ramsey scream in my face about money. This guy was intense! He was passionate! He was passionate because he had witnessed time and time again people squander a limited resource that is necessary for life: money. You can’t live life without it, but it also doesn’t grow on trees, as the saying goes.
If I were to ask you, “what is the world’s most valuable resource?” what would come to mind? We often think of things that are rare: gold, platinum, etc. These things are valuable because there is a limited supply relative to the demand. Limiting a necessity creates high value. Although we often think of physical things when we think of resources, the world’s most valuable resource is not physical. It is not something you can save. It is not something you can borrow. Although, it can be bought. Companies and organizations pay trillions in the form of salaries to acquire more of it each and every year. This resource is limited; there is not more of it anywhere in the universe. It cannot be created in a lab. Each human being is given a set amount, and outside of taking someone else’s, no individual can acquire more. This limited and unbelievably valuable resource is your time.
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things...”
Jesus, in the Gospels, set the expectation that we would steward our resources. He tells a story in Matthew 25 of three nobles who were each given resources by their king according to their abilities. Two men stewarded what they had been given and were, in turn, rewarded and given more. The king said to each of them, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:21 KJV). The third man, however, squandered the opportunity he was given, and what he was given was taken away. The king described him as a “wicked and slothful servant” (Matthew 25:26 KJV). Those are strong words directed at a man who did not steward but instead wasted what he had been given. The expectation is that we would steward what we have been given.
Even if we don’t know how to define the word, we all understand what it means to steward, especially when it comes to money. Stewardship is the difference between blowing your money on Big Macs at McDonald’s and paying against the principal on your home loan. It’s the difference between buying a boat and putting the same money into your IRA. However, we don’t often think the same way about stewarding time—a more valuable resource. To the resource of time, the same principles of stewardship apply. Stewardship is the difference between binge watching Netflix and spending time with your family. It is the difference between endless “doomscrolling” and reading a helpful book. Time is an incredibly valuable resource; it only makes sense that we would steward it as we are expected to steward all the resources we have been given.
It has been said, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” We cannot expect to be good stewards of our time without a plan. So in the spirit of intentional stewardship, let me suggest two practical steps you can take to better spend your time.
First, take inventory.
How are you spending your time? There are some easy indicators. If you’re running out of things to watch in the massive Netflix library, you have a pretty good idea of how you’ve been spending your evenings. If the Screen Time report on your iPhone says that you spent six hours per day on your phone last week, there went a big chunk of your time. However, if you find yourself short on time and there are no obvious indicators of where that time is going, it may be helpful to keep a journal of how you spend your time over the course of a week. Set a reminder in your phone, and every thirty minutes, stop to write down what you did in the previous thirty. Do this for a week and you may discover a million little, unimportant things that are “nickel-and-diming” your time.
Second, create a time budget.
How do you want to spend your time? Maybe you want to spend more time playing catch with your son. Maybe you need to clean out your garage. Decide what you want to do, and literally put it on the calendar. Write it down. Determine, “I will spend this amount of time on this date doing this activity.” If you do not plan to spend your time a certain way, you will naturally do whatever is your default, and one’s default is likely not good stewardship.
God has given us each one life. That’s it. We can’t save it; we must spend it. Let’s not spend it on that which is trivial.