True Wealth: The Life Money Can’t Buy | Part 3

Scripture: Psalm 90:12; Ephesians 5:15–17

Do you ever feel like you’ve got so much going on in life that you just can’t keep track of it all?

I’m in a season like that now, so I found a way to bring my calendar, to-do list, and emails all together into one system that gives me a daily briefing every morning, along with real-time reminders throughout the day so I don’t forget anything important. This has been really helpful, but what’s frustrating is that even though I’ve become much more efficient, I’ve taken all the saved time and filled it with even more responsibilities without even realizing it. So sometimes I feel even busier than before!

Has this ever happened to you?

New technologies have given us more ways to save time than ever before. We can pay our bills, order groceries, shop for clothes, and hold a meeting with someone on the other side of the world all at the same time without ever leaving our house. And even though there’s growing concern about data centers, AI has been released into the world and is helping ordinary people accomplish in thirty seconds what used to take trained professionals several hours.

Where does all the saved time go?

Instead of using the time we save to slow down and enjoy life, we keep rushing from one thing to another, packing our calendars with new commitments, checking our phones while waiting in line, responding to emails during dinner, and lying awake at 12:00 a.m. thinking about everything we didn’t get done. Ironically, when someone asks how we’re doing, we often say, “Busy!” with a glimmer of pride in our eyes, as if that proved our value and importance.

But is that true?

In this article, we talk about wealth in terms of time and attention, which is very different from our discussion of money a couple of weeks ago. You can save money, and you can earn more if you lose it. But you can’t really save time, at least not by taking an hour from one day and using it on another. We only get one day at a time, and each day contains twenty-four hours. Whether we use them wisely or waste them on things that don’t matter, when they’re gone, they’re gone.

So the question isn’t how much time we have, but how we spend it.

The Poverty of a Full Calendar

One of the great ironies of modern life is that we can have lots of money and be desperately poor when it comes to time. We often work insane hours to build an awesome life we hope to enjoy someday in the distant future. We tell ourselves that when the schedule clears up, the kids get older, the project is finished, or we retire—then we’ll slow down and enjoy life.

But here’s the problem. We almost automatically fill whatever space opens up, and “someday” has a sneaky way of becoming “never.” And one reason is that we often confuse having a full and meaningful life with having a busy schedule. But these are not the same. You can have a full calendar and an empty soul. You can accomplish everything on your to-do list and still miss what matters most. You can be so busy making a living that you forget to live your life.

In Psalm 90, we get a short prayer intended to shift our thinking about all this: “Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart.”

This is not a prayer asking God for more hours in the day so we can get more done. It’s a prayer asking God to teach us to truly appreciate and wisely manage the time we’ve been given. And there’s a big difference. When the Psalmist says, “Teach us to number our days,” he isn’t encouraging us to be fearful and obsessed with how much time we have left. He’s asking God to teach us how valuable our time is, precisely because it’s limited.

This means that the conversation you have with your spouse, the time you spend with your kids or grandkids, the opportunity to encourage someone, and taking a moment to enjoy a beautiful sunrise—it all matters, because once these moments are gone, we can’t get them back.

So, while our culture tells us to be more efficient, the Psalmist tells us to be more intentional. The goal of life isn’t to squeeze as much activity as possible into any given day, but to become the kind of people who are grateful for every moment and can wisely discern what truly deserves their attention.

Hurry Is a Spiritual Problem

To be clear, I am not saying that having a full schedule is always bad. Some seasons of life bring more responsibilities than others. Parents with young children know this well, as do caregivers and those forced to work multiple jobs. Many people simply don’t have the freedom to slow down right now, and sometimes our schedules are full because we’re doing important things for people we love. So please don’t hear this sermon as a guilt trip for having too much to do.

But there’s a difference between having a full life and just being busy. A busy life is crowded with obligations, distractions, and endless demands on our time, leaving us exhausted but not fulfilled. In contrast, a full life is shaped by intentional choices that reflect our deepest values, nurture meaningful relationships, and make room for God’s presence and purposes. Because of this difference, you can have a full schedule and still be deeply present, just as you can have nothing on your calendar and still be restless, distracted, and anxious.

Furthermore, busyness is not just a scheduling problem. When we’re so preoccupied with what’s next that we can no longer pay attention to what’s right in front of us, it becomes a spiritual problem too. Think about how often this happens, when we are physically present, but our mind is somewhere else. And the tragedy is that the people we love most are the ones who get what’s left of our attention after everything else has gobbled up its share.

This is why Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time.”

When Paul talks about “making the most of the time,” he’s not talking about being more productive or optimizing our schedules. Like the Psalmist, he’s talking about wisdom—truly valuing the gift of time and directing it not toward selfish ambition or even the demands of others, but toward God’s purposes, so we don’t miss what’s most important in life. This is why he writes, do not be foolish, but understand the will of the Lord.

When it comes to how we spend our time, Paul says the most important thing is pausing to discern what God is calling us to do. This means that when we stop, put down our phone, get quiet, and listen, we aren’t just reclaiming our sanity. We’re practicing our Christian faith.

Slowing down is a spiritual discipline that helps us to discern what deserves our time and attention, which is another way of saying what helps us to love God and others more fully as opposed to what turns us in on ourselves and destroys life. This is why busyness is so dangerous. If love is the purpose of our lives, and love requires attention, busyness becomes the enemy when it makes us inattentive to God and one another. Because you can’t truly love someone while constantly treating them as an interruption.

Jesus and the Gift of Presence

Jesus is really helpful here. If anyone had a reason to be busy, it was Jesus. There were people to heal, crowds to teach, and disciples to train. And yet, when you read the Gospels, he rarely seems hurried. He moves from place to place, works hard, and becomes tired, but he’s not driven by busyness.

In fact, some of the most important moments in his ministry happen because he’s willing to be interrupted. Think about the woman who had a bleeding problem for twelve years. Jesus is on his way to the home of Jairus, and it’s an urgent situation because Jairus’ daughter is dying. But when the woman presses through the crowd and reaches out to touch Jesus, he doesn’t treat her as a distraction, shove her away, and keep going. He stops, looks at her, listens to her, calls her “Daughter,” and takes the time not only to restore her health but also her dignity and her place in the community.

Now, imagine how differently that story might have unfolded if Jesus had operated according to the priorities that often govern our schedules. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m running late. I have a very important appointment. One of my disciples will follow up with you.”

But this is not what happens, and because Jesus acted differently than we might expect, we have a chance to learn an important lesson. Sometimes the interruption or the inconvenience is the most important thing in that moment. Sometimes the person standing in front of us should come before the next item on our agenda.

As we read beyond this story in the Bible, we see that in addition to making time for people, Jesus also made time for God. Again and again, the Gospels tell us that he withdrew from the crowds to pray. He stepped away from the demands of work to rest. And I think that’s important because if Jesus, the Son of God, needed time for prayer, rest, and renewal, why do we think we can wisely and faithfully live without those things?

Jesus shows us that a rich life isn’t simply about how much we earn or accomplish but about the quality of our presence. Being present to God, present to others, and present to ourselves in a way that empowers us to have life and have it more abundantly.

Sabbath: We Are More Than What We Do

And this brings us to one of the most countercultural practices in the Jewish and Christian traditions: Sabbath. When we hear the word Sabbath, we often think about taking a day off from work, usually a Sunday, so we can rest and return to work more energized and productive. While rest is certainly part of it, practicing Sabbath is more about understanding that our worth is not determined by our productivity.

Think about that. We live in a culture that constantly asks us what we’re accomplishing. What have you done today? How much have you produced? Are you making progress? And if we’re not careful, we begin to measure our own value by those same standards. We start believing that we’re only as valuable as the tasks we successfully accomplish.

But practicing Sabbath rest reminds us that before we accomplish anything, before we produce anything, before we prove ourselves useful to anyone, God already loves us. This means that our life already has value, and that our worth is a gift of God’s grace. We don’t have to justify our existence or earn our value by staying busy. We can simply be.

But that’s harder than it sounds. Because for many of us, doing nothing feels uncomfortable. If we have a few free minutes, we reach for our phones. If there’s an open space on our calendar, we look for something to fill it. If we sit in silence, we get restless. But Sabbath invites us to resist these impulses. To stop striving. To release, even for a little while, the illusion that everything depends on us. And to remember that God is God, and we are not.

This doesn’t mean that the practice of Sabbath looks the same for everyone. Some people have demanding jobs or caretaking responsibilities that make a traditional day of rest difficult. For others, Sunday is a workday.

But the deeper invitation remains. Can we create space in our lives where we’re not defined by what we accomplish? Can we give ourselves permission to rest without guilt? Can we become quiet enough to notice and enjoy the presence of God? Because Sabbath isn’t simply about taking time off, but also about recovering our capacity to be fully present with others and pay attention. The good news is that as we learn to be present to God, we become better able to be present to one another.

Becoming Rich in Attention

This helps us to see the deep connection between time and attention. We can give someone our time without giving them our attention. We can sit in the same room, share a meal, even have a conversation, and still be somewhere else mentally. But when we give someone our full attention, we’re offering something priceless. We’re saying, “You matter enough for me to be here, with you, right now.”

And that’s one of the most meaningful forms of generosity. For many people, giving money is easy, because if we come up short, we can always earn more. But time is different, because when we give someone an hour of our lives, we give something that can never be replaced. Which is what makes our time so valuable.

So here’s the invitation. You don’t have to completely reorganize your schedule or commit to an entire day of Sabbath rest to take the first step. It’s often wise to start small, so maybe just plan to slow down for one hour. Step away from all the busyness to read some scripture and pray, to move your body, or to notice the beauty of God’s good creation. What you choose to do as a way to slow down is less important than making sure you connect with your heart, to connect with God, and to connect with others. This is not another task to complete, and I don’t want you to worry about whether you’re doing it right. Just be present, pay attention, and notice what happens when you stop trying to get somewhere else and simply receive the moment you’re in as a gift of grace.

Again, the purpose of Sabbath isn’t to make us more productive. It’s to remind us that our lives are more than what we produce. And maybe, if we practice that kind of attention, we’ll begin to notice that there are gifts all around us that we are usually too distracted to see.

Psalm 90 says, “Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart,” and that’s my prayer for us. Not simply that we would have more time, but that we would be filled with gratitude for the time we have and exercise wisdom in the way we share this gift with others.

Continue the Journey

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