Do You Have Time?

“But, Sister Smith, I just don’t have time!”
The question had just been posed by the Sunday school teacher in the front of the room asking why some had not been memorizing their verses or turning in their weekly activity sheets. The response was met with a firm lip and a wrinkled brow. Pausing a moment, she took a deep breath and began her own studied response.
“Okay, we don’t have time. Let’s figure this out. Are you ready? Now, how many hours are there in a day?”
Hands raised and voices responded, “Twenty-four!”
“Right. Now let’s say you sleep for eight hours and go to school for another eight hours. That is sixteen hours. How many are left?”
This time a few of the older kids raised their hands and hesitantly answered, “Eight?”
“Great, eight hours left at home. Let’s say you take an hour for supper and an hour for homework, now how many are left?”
“Six!” quickly responded a few brave junior Math freaks.
“That is correct! Now help me understand this. After you account for all of the necessary things you have to do, you’re left with maybe six hours of free time? Let’s say we made a mistake somewhere and you only have half of that, that there is three hours of free time every evening, am I right?”
A few kids began to see where the teacher was headed and slowly nodded their heads.
“Well, tell me, if you have three hours of free time every day to do whatever you wanted to do, what were you doing with that free time?”
After sorting through several responses, the most common reason by all of the children came down to playing on the computer, video games or watching TV. The conclusion was clear; we have time for everything we want, but not enough time for God.
Upon reading this story from an old newsletter in my files, I realized that the problem would be one thing if it only applied to our kids. However, this problem is generated by me and my fellow adults. How can I expect my son to find time with God, if he doesn’t see me spend time with God?
Does my son see me reading the Bible or hear me calling out to God? Does he see me spend time studying to make myself find greater depths in God? Has he seen ME memorizing scripture?
As unrealistic as it is that we would spend all of our free time on spiritual endeavors, it is not unrealistic to realize that God does deserve more of our time than we have allowed. God always has time for me. I do not remember a time when I cried out to Him, and He responded, “But Tim, I just don’t have the time!”