A world of possibilities, and nothing comes to mind. 

Sound familiar? 

Take a quick look at your surroundings—whether that’s your bedroom, your car, your classroom, or anywhere else. What do you notice? Chairs? Windows? Everyday life? 

Nothing? 

Looking at where I am, my first instinct is that none of it is interesting. Sure, there’s a shelf full of books, many of which I haven’t completed, my phone propped up against my computer timing how long it takes me to write this article, a tv in one corner, a bow and a quiver of arrows by the stairs, a window overlooking part of the roof and my back yard, the list goes on. But when I look around, I don’t usually see any of that. Not really. 

I see the same set of items I see every day. Monotony. Even if I haven’t used half those items in days, or even months. 

You might be surprised by this—especially the inclusion of such items as my phone and the tv—given my introduction to the article. Surely those provide lots of things to do? Surely I notice those? 

But what do I do on my phone? The same things I do every day—check my email, my messages, maybe look at my photos. 

A lot of people have some brand of social media on their phones, whether that’s Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or anything else. I tend to stay away from those, just because I know I’ll get sucked into them headfirst if I dare try them out. I had Facebook for maybe a month before I deleted it, though I kept Messenger. 

Now, there’s decent odds you’ve heard plenty about social media, and time management, and things like that from your parents. And maybe you’re sick and tired of hearing about it. 

But let’s think about this from God’s point of view, shall we? 

He created a fantastic world full of more than any of us can imagine, so much that we’ll probably never discover it all. With all that He created, He gave us tools so that we can follow His example and make our own little designs. 

He watched His creations create all kinds of things—-houses, wagons, cars, phones, glasses, medicine, and so much more. Each new development sending us into a happy little frenzy as we built with what He gave us. 

But not everything has been used well. 

You’re probably thinking something like “yeah, yeah, I know where this is going—use your phone well!”

But that’s not exactly my point. 

Yes, we should use our phones well, but that goes for everything. Anything can be misused, and people will misuse most things. 

Look around you again. So many things. But a lot of what you see isn’t misused, it just isn’t used at all. 

Take my bow and arrows. I’ve had them for several years now. For a time, I was super excited about them—I would go shoot hay bales in the wood shed or make myself targets to hit. But I haven’t done that in quite a while. Why? 

Is it because I don’t have the time?

If you had asked me a year ago, I probably would have said that was the reason. But I graduated in May. If I wanted an excuse now, I would tell you that I haven’t used it in so long because I’ve been focusing on my writing instead. But if you were to ask me how much writing I’ve been doing with all my time, I would have to admit that it isn’t nearly as much as I would like. I spend probably an average of two hours writing a day. And there’s a lot more hours in a day than two. 

But maybe my time is filled with other things instead—like making meals for my family or cleaning the house. And sure, those things take up some time. 

But an awful lot of my time is empty. 

I can’t tell you how much of my time seems to slip away when I’m doing absolutely nothing. How short my day feels with nothing to fill it. 

If you’re like me, there’s a good chance you’re eagerly awaiting your graduation because “then you’ll have time for all the things you don’t get to do now”. (Or perhaps you’re already dealing with this.) 

And maybe you think you won’t have the same problem as I have. I’ll concede the possibility, but it depends on what you do with your time. In my case, it seems to me that the more time I have, the less use I make of it. 

Think about it—when you’re not in classes or doing schoolwork, what do you do? Let’s cut time with friends and family out as well. Where do the extra bits go?

Sleeping, eating, doing nothing on your phone? Maybe you do some art, or read a book on occasion, but I suspect there’s a lot of time that slips through the cracks. Time that seems too small to use, or time when you’re just too tired to do anything. 

And maybe you think that larger blocks of time would fix the problem. And maybe, if you’re lucky, it will. Or maybe, when you have large amounts of time, you’ll end up feeling like there’s time to relax, time to sleep in, time to look at your phone for a bit before you do other things. And those bits of time could add up to most of a day. 

It’s ridiculous to me how many hours seem to enter a black hole, leaving only a few hours for the things I want to do, when I could juggle ten classes plus writing during the school year. 

My current hope is that going to college this fall will fix that problem, but if I want to regain my time, I’m going to need to change something else as well. 

Because as it is, I look around and inadvertently choose to stare at a wall rather than do something meaningful with my time. I move slowly, convinced that I have all the time in the world, right up until the moment I go to bed. 

I sincerely hope this isn’t you and never will be you. 

But what can we do to avoid it? 

God has given us so much time, and we waste so very much of it. How much of the Bible could we read in our spare moments when we choose to do nothing at all? How much could we do for someone else when we choose to do nothing for our own selves?

Maybe you’re thinking that you’re resting, and that’s important. But I assure you, it’s possible to be tired all day long. If you let yourself do enough nothing, it will only feed the belief in your heart that you need the nothing. That you need time to yourself. Until nothing seems worthwhile enough, so you choose to do nothing at all.

Don’t get me wrong, sleep is important. Your body is a temple, after all, so you ought to care for it. 

But I think the myth of “my time” has destroyed many of us. 

Because “our” time isn’t really ours. It’s God’s. When I sit in a chair doing nothing, I’m not really wasting my time. I’m wasting God’s time. 

Sure, He has endless time. But He’s given me, His servant, a certain amount of time to accomplish certain things, and if I’m letting the seeds of seconds, and minutes, and hours slip from my hand onto cement, I won’t have much to show when He comes to collect what I’ve grown. 

So next time you find yourself with a few extra minutes—or even one, however small and useless it may seem—find some way to plant it. Plant every seed carefully, and who knows? Maybe it will grow into a tree. 

Pick up your bow and start shooting—maybe it will give you the means to feed someone in need. Practice a language for a few minutes—maybe you’ll be able to help a stranger. Explore the outdoors—maybe you’ll find something that will spread joy to another’s heart. Write, draw, read—maybe your efforts will impact another’s soul. Read your Bible in your spare time—maybe those verses will give you the ability to refute the Devil in your life or someone else’s. 

We don’t know what God will do with the seeds He has us plant—all we know is that He gave each one of them to us for a reason, so we had better not waste them.