March 3, 2025 • 21 mins
Every second ticking by is gone forever. Unlike money or possessions, time can't be stored, regained, or expanded—making it perhaps our most precious resource. Yet most of us willingly surrender huge portions of our lives to mindless scrolling, endless entertainment, and urgent-but-unimportant tasks.
The numbers are sobering: the average person spends 2.5 hours daily on social media and Americans watch roughly eight years of TV in a lifetime. Meanwhile, we struggle to find moments for what truly matters. But what if redirecting just a fraction of that time could transform our spiritual lives? If you replaced average social media usage with Bible reading, you could complete the entire New Testament in a single week.
Jesus illustrated this profound truth in the story of Martha and Mary. When Martha complained about her sister sitting at Jesus' feet instead of helping with hospitality tasks, Jesus gently corrected her: "Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary." Martha wasn't doing anything wrong—she was being hospitable—but Mary had chosen "the good portion" by prioritizing presence with Jesus.
This tension between good and better choices defines our daily struggle with time management. Using tools like the Eisenhower Box helps distinguish between urgent and important tasks, but the deeper question remains: "Is this activity drawing me closer to God or pulling me away?"
Ready to reclaim your time? Try our three-part challenge: audit where your hours are actually going, eliminate one major distraction this week, and replace that time with something meaningful—prayer, Bible study, or genuine connection with others. Take back control of your most valuable resource and discover what you were truly made for.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh (00:07):
Welcome to Made for Good, the podcast where we explore how
to live out our purpose throughacts of goodness, out of a
biblical truth.
Hey, I'm Josh
Mark (00:14):
and I'm Mark.
Today we're going to talk aboutone of the most valuable
resources God gives us.
That's time.
Unlike money or possessions, wecan't store it, we can't regain
it, we can't expand it.
Once a moment's gone, it's gone.
What do you think?
(00:35):
One of the biggest ways peoplewaste their time today?
Josh (00:38):
Well, I think there's several, but the biggest, I
would just say distractions.
It's one of the biggestculprits.
I mean, think about it socialmedia.
We binge watch shows because wecan stream anything without
commercials now, my kids don'teven know about commercials, by
the way or we just scrollendlessly on our phones.
We don't often realize thatwe're just wasting our time
(00:59):
throughout the day.
Mark (01:01):
That's so true, and the Bible actually warns us about
this.
Ephesians 5, verse 15 and 16says look carefully, then, how
you walk, not as unwise, but aswise, making the best use of
time because the days are evil.
God is really telling us hereto be intentional with our time,
(01:23):
not just avoiding sin oravoiding doing the bad things,
but to make sure that we'reusing it for things that matter.
It's kind of a conversation ofgood versus even better and what
we want to do in any of this,in all of our time, we want to
make sure that we're bringingglory to God.
Josh (01:43):
Right, and one of the clearest biblical examples you
kind of hinted at this of astruggle with time is found in
Luke 10, with the story of Maryand Martha.
Martha was busy preparing andserving, while Mary she was
sitting at Jesus' feet listeningto Him.
So Martha was doing a good work.
I think we struggle with that.
Was one doing something bad andwas one doing something good?
(02:06):
But there was a part of thisstory where Martha complained
that Mary wasn't helping andlisten to Jesus' response in
Luke 10.
This is found in verses 41 and42.
Martha, Martha, you're anxiousand troubled about many things,
but one thing is necessary Maryhas chosen the good portion,
which will not be taken awayfrom her.
Mark (02:28):
Yes.
So Martha wasn't doing anythingwrong.
In fact, she was doingsomething very good.
She was being hospitable Right,and Mary wasn't doing anything
wrong in that she was nothelping Martha.
They were both doing goodthings.
But one of those things,according to Jesus, is the
(02:52):
better portion or the goodportion, and Jesus said that
Mary was choosing the betteroption here.
Martha was distracted.
She couldn't see the betterbecause of the good things that
she was trying to do.
She really missed the bestthing, and that's being in the
(03:13):
presence of Jesus and hearinghim and learning from him.
What if Martha was sittingthere beside Mary?
Do you think at some pointmaybe Jesus and Martha and Mary
would get up and maybe goprepare the food together?
If they were both sitting therelistening, do you think that
(03:36):
they would have gone hungry?
No, they would not have gonehungry.
They would have eventuallygotten to the food, the
sustenance that they need.
And so, to be very clear,Martha wasn't doing anything
wrong here.
Josh (03:51):
You look back at those two verses that verse 41 and 42,
this really is a tough lessonfor us to learn.
I mean, how often do we getcaught up into a busy task?
The responsibilities are likeyou said.
They could be good things, butthe reality is we could be
neglecting what's most importanttime with God.
Mark (04:08):
Let's look at our main challenge today, our main
mission.
We're talking about redeemingthe time.
Ephesians 5.16 tells us toredeem the time because the days
are evil.
You know, if you think aboutthat phrase, the days are evil.
You know, there are lots ofways we can look at that, but
one of them is that, as wementioned before, you can't
(04:30):
store it, you can't preserve it,it's just going and it's
expiring.
As we talk, the day is expiringand we let time just slip away.
You know, we've got somestatistics here that we'd like
to take a look at and you know,this is probably a little bit
(04:52):
dated.
It may even be more, you know,in 2025.
But the average person spendsabout two and a half hours a day
on social media.
That's the average person.
Two and a half hours a day onsocial media that's the average
person.
I think if you're between, ifyou're a teenager, maybe into
(05:15):
your 20s, it could be as high asfour or five hours a day on
social media.
Americans, specifically, onaverage spend about eight years
of their life watching TV, justconsuming watching TV.
You know, josh, today mostpeople spend more time on their
phones than in a meaningfulconversation with another human
being.
We just.
You know, there's a specificphysiological issue that a lot
(05:39):
of people have in their necksbecause they are looking down.
We live in a college town.
You're driving through town.
My wife always has to remind methe students are back.
They walk into a crosswalkwithout even looking up from
their phone, and that's real.
It's dangerous.
But older adults do it as well.
(06:00):
We're not immune.
We like to maybe point fingers,maybe we don't.
We're not on social media asmuch, but we're probably wasting
time watching TV or doingsomething else whole time.
Josh (06:12):
We went to Chick-Fil-A recently
Mark (06:12):
I know where this is going .
Josh (06:20):
We were eating in the restaurant, uh, trying to make
sure our kids didn't tearsomething up.
Those two people just stared attheir phones the whole time,
not having a conversation
maybe they were having anargument via text which is a
great way to have an argumentright, they were just sitting
there going back and forthtyping furiously.
I will say though uh, the stats that you gave, that's
(06:43):
really really uncomfortable forme to listen to, especially like
8 years of our life watching TV.
It's just insane.
One of the things going back toJesus, he set an example of
just intentionality, like inJohn 9, 4, where he said we must
work the works of him who sentme while at stay, night's coming
(07:03):
, when no one can work.
Jesus understood the urgency ofusing his time wisely, the same
urgency that should shapereally how we go about our days.
Mark (07:15):
You know that, working the works of him who sent me.
There's the intentionalityright.
There's the purpose.
We go back to our foundationalverse that we based this podcast
on, in Ephesians 2.10, where wewere created in Christ for good
(07:35):
works.
There's the purpose, there'sthe mission of why we are
created.
You know, obviously we want tospend eternity in heaven with
God, but we're here, we're onthe earth.
What should we be doing?
Well, if you're created inChrist, you should be doing good
works right, because that'swhat we're made for, and he
purposefully established thosebeforehand, and that beforehand
(07:59):
is before time.
And so this is hard.
This is, this is our realitycheck.
You know, when we look at wealready mentioned a little bit
of it this, this the biggesttime wasters of our lives, the
endless scrolling, hey, and it'snot just social media, you know
(08:21):
.
It's not just.
You know, figure out what ourlatest pop star is doing or not
doing, or whatever.
It can be online shopping Imean the microphone that's
sitting between us here, josh, Idon't know.
I probably spent a few hoursbecause you know I can't just go
buy something.
(08:41):
You know, I've got a, I've gota research, I'm an engineer, I
got to research and I need data,and so I'm going to watch, you
know, 15 videos of reviews.
Josh (08:52):
You're going to maybe send me three of them.
Well, I'm filtering for you.
Mark (08:55):
I'm filtering just so I'm giving you the good stuff that
that we can.
We can make our, our, ourselection, informed selection.
But it's hey, it's also news,you know, it could be sports.
There's just this, the end.
Endless scrolling.
Josh (09:10):
Yeah.
Mark (09:11):
You know.
Another one is theentertainment.
I mean binge watching ourfavorite Netflix, you know
series or Hulu or Prime or Apple.
Josh (09:24):
I want to admit something here.
I went to a birthday party fora child last weekend, had my
phone watching the Auburn game.
Mark (09:34):
Yeah, I've never done that , Josh.
I don't know why.
What is your motivation behindthat?
But you mentioned game.
I mean video games today, theamount of time that people
Luckily I never got into videogames.
You know, I had the one.
The one I have is in a museumsomewhere right now.
That's the Pong or somethingit's.
(09:55):
I'm thankful that I reallynever was bit by that, but I
know a lot of people will do itand it's a way for them to relax
.
You know, from Elon Musk all theway down to you know, your,
your average college student.
It's a way to decompress and Iget that, but it's mindless and
(10:22):
it's not something that weshould waste too much time on.
Another one is justovercommitting.
We say yes to everything.
We spread ourselves too thinand you know that is something
that is very, very hard for usto say and to say no or no,
thank you.
I'm sorry, I just don't havethe time to spend in the way
that I would want to spend onthat project.
(10:42):
I just but we say yes and wejust stack things up over and
over and over and over on top ofeach other.
Josh (10:48):
I would say we probably have.
Most of our listeners areChristians and this is something
that we really struggle with.
But you said something to me acouple of years ago that I can
say no and I don't have to havean explanation of why I'm saying
no.
We get so uncomfortable becausewe just say yes, but the times
where we get bold enough in theconfidence to say no, we feel
like well, let me give you thisbig story of why I can't say no.
Mark (11:11):
Yeah, we defend the no Right
Josh (11:12):
and we don't even have to do that
We can just say no politely.
Mark (11:15):
Yeah Well, and the politely matters.
I appreciate you thinking of me, but, no, I'm not going to be
able to do that and you can endit there.
You don't have to go.
You can virtue signal.
Look, I'm volunteering at thefood bank and I'm, you know, I'm
doing all these other thingsand you know I just don't have.
(11:36):
I don't have the time.
Graciously, decline and over aperiod of time.
This is what we hope in thispodcast is that we figure out
how, as it says back inEphesians 5, and we first talked
about we want to use wisdom notas unwise, but as wise.
We want to use wisdom on how,and part of the wisdom is saying
(12:00):
no to the things that don'treally matter.
Another one that can contributeis just being disorganized,
just losing time because wedon't really plan ahead, and
that's something that it's atool.
Planning can help us manage ourtime a little better.
They have these things I don'tknow, josh, have you heard of
(12:21):
them?
They're called calendars.
What's that?
It's a calendar.
It starts with a C, not a K.
You can get them on your phone.
You can get them on yourcomputer.
Even in the ancient times, theyprinted them on paper, wow, and
we hung them on the wall wayback in the old days.
I'll have to Google that.
(12:49):
Yeah days, I'll have to Googlethat.
Yeah, yeah, there's a video.
Josh (12:51):
I'm sure here's something else to think about.
Are we prioritizing the urgentover the important?
We fill our schedules withtasks, but we forget about our
time with God.
Mark (12:54):
You know, there is something called the Eisenhower
box.
It's four quadrants.
It's a picture of a square withfour smaller squares inside of
it and we've got important, notimportant, urgent, not urgent.
So it doesn't take a genius tofigure out the not important,
not urgent things we shouldn'tbe doing at all.
(13:18):
So the not urgent but importantare things that we need to.
Those are the hardest.
They're important but they'renot urgent.
(13:40):
We have to make time to do theimportant things.
If someone is going to ask youto read a scripture at church,
you're going to read it becausethere's an emergency there.
You're going to.
You're going to read your Bible.
Before you get up in front of agroup of a few hundred people
and read the Bible, right, um.
So you're going.
It's.
It's urgent and important.
(14:00):
You need to do it right now.
Urgent and important, you needto do it right now.
If it's urgent and important,you need to do it right now.
Someone is suffering.
You know the need.
Someone is sick.
Get on that right now.
And here's the thing If it'snot important but someone else
thinks it's urgent, there'swhere we waste a lot of time as
(14:22):
well.
If you look at that, those fourquadrants.
We shouldn't be spending anytime in the not important
whether it's not urgent or notimportant or not important but
somebody thinks it's urgent butit's really not.
So what we want to do is spendour time on the important,
(14:46):
urgent things.
So that's being responsive to aneed when we see it, and the
other part is not really urgentbut it's important, it's about.
One of those examples would bethings like building a
relationship with somebody Notsuper urgent, yeah, I need to
spend more time with them.
Okay, then make time for thatimportant aspect of what you're
(15:07):
trying to do and leave all thenon-important stuff out of our
daily life.
You know, jesus really modeledthis when it comes to the
balance that he had in his life.
He prayed, he served, he madetime for other people.
He actually made time forhimself because he would
(15:29):
withdraw, and I have a feelingthat a lot of that time that he
withdrew was he was inconversation with God and he was
building his own relationshipwith God, building his own
stamina to do what God had askedhim to do when he came to live
his life here on earth.
We have to take an honest lookat where our time is going and
(15:52):
ask and here's a super importantquestion when we're trying to
think of that Eisenhower box, isthis drawing me closer to God
or is it pulling me away?
Josh (16:06):
I was just thinking about what you said early on in the
podcast and putting it togetherwith what you just said.
We start looking at time.
As we don't get it back, itdoes change our mindset with it
altogether.
Well, let's, let's shift gearsto our mission for this week for
everyone.
This, I'm going to be honest,this one's a little bit.
Mark (16:23):
I got a feeling you're going to, we're going to, we're
going to hurt some feelings.
Josh (16:27):
Yeah, we may get a bad rating.
It's a little uncomfortableeven for us, because you know
we'll be falling suit with thistoo, but the first thing that
that's a part of your mission isaudit your time.
What that means is we're askingyou to track where your hours
are actually going each day andidentify where you're wasting
your time.
Mark (16:47):
So can you, can you do that?
So you write that down with apiece of paper, like in pencil,
Josh (16:51):
apparently you guys had calendars that you printed out
and you had on the wall, so youprobably could write it, but
there's apps for that too.
Oh, there's an app.
Yeah, you got it.
The second thing that we'reasking to do this and this
really goes hand in hand withauditing your time is removing
one major distraction.
This is the one that's hard forme to even say.
We're asking you to choosesomething, whether it's social
(17:13):
media there's a lot of forms ofthat
except the made 4 good social
yeah that's approved.
Mark (17:19):
Yeah, okay, that's a pretty pretty good.
Josh (17:22):
So social media, tv, excessive phone You've talked
about a number of ways that wecould do that and we're asking
you to cut it down this week.
So, to be clear, choosingsomething meaning one we want
you to cut it down this week andthen we want you to replace
that with something meaningful.
So, in other words, instead ofscrolling, use the time for
(17:43):
maybe something I don't know,like prayer, bible study or
serving with someone in need.
Mark (17:49):
OK, I got a bonus for you and it kind of fits in to that
last one that you mentioned.
But here's a novel idea howabout spend 30 minutes this week
having a meaningfulconversation with somebody?
I don't know, maybe a familymember.
Maybe go meet a friend forcoffee Josh and I do that all
(18:11):
the time or maybe praying withsomeone who needs encouragement,
but we're talking about 30minutes of conversation.
I'm talking about conversationwith your voice, maybe best in
the same room with the person.
Obviously, you could callsomebody on the phone and have
(18:31):
this conversation, particularly,you know, if it's a family
member that lives far away.
Right, have a 30 minuteconversation with a real person.
And I don't mean maybe you knowthe service support desk at the
local store where you're tryingto get something returned.
These are meaningfulconversations.
(18:51):
This is about wanting to knowhow they're doing and is there
something that I can do?
You know, to help?
I can do to help.
So that's the bonus challenge.
So we've got about four thingsthat we want to try to do this
week.
I'm just going to review themreal quick.
(19:12):
We're going to audit time.
We're going to turn on thatfeature on our phone where it
tracks our time, how much wouldwe use?
We'll not be surprised whatthat is.
We're going to try to remove oneof those major distractions.
It could be something on thephone, but it also could be I
don't know YouTube TV that's onethat I spend a lot of time in.
(19:35):
Or it could just be other typesof excessive phone use, you
know, scrolling through news orwhatever, and when I just cut
that out, we're going to replacethat with something that's
meaningful.
So instead of that scrolling,we're going to use time for
prayer or Bible study.
(19:56):
We did an analysis previously,josh and I did, where we found
out that if you took the two anda half hours a day that people
spend on social media, how long,if you spent two and a half
hours a day reading your Bible,how long would it take for you
to read the New Testament?
You could do that in a week.
(20:16):
One week, if you just tooksocial media out and put the
word of God in, you could readthe entire New Testament in a
week,
Josh (20:25):
which is wild, and you know.
Also, with the Bible app, itcould read to you.
Mark (20:29):
Okay, Do you know how to read right?
Josh (20:31):
I do, but it's also fun to have someone read to you.
Mark (20:34):
Okay, Well no, I get that and I do that sometimes too, and
particularly like when you'redoing something where you can
just check out in your mind,like exercising or working in
the yard.
Just pop the headphones on SonyWalkman, pop that in and listen
to the Bible.
Actually, it's probably morelike AirPod Pros these days.
(20:56):
Yeah, there you go.
Well, I wanted to say one of thethings we'll try to do after
this episode is we're on everyform of social media.
We have X, instagram andFacebook.
We'll try to do after thisepisode is we have, you know,
we're on every form of socialmedia.
We have X, instagram andFacebook.
We'll try to put this list outthere for a reminder, because I
do like that.
We said it, you know, try tosay it multiple times.
We also understand thesemissions.
There's a lot to them sometimes, so we'll get these put out
(21:17):
there on our forms of socialmedia.
Okay, well, look.
That's it for today's episodeof Made for Good.
If this conversation inspiredyou to make some changes, maybe
it was challenging to you andyou want to hear more about it.
Make sure you subscribe anddon't miss the next one.
Josh (21:40):
Well, we hope that you found this valuable.
Consider sharing with a friendUntil next time.
Go out and use your time wisely.
You were made for it.
Welcome to Made for Good, the podcast where we explore how
to live out our purpose throughacts of goodness, out of a
biblical truth.
Hey, I'm Josh
Mark (00:14):
and I'm Mark.
Today we're going to talk aboutone of the most valuable
resources God gives us.
That's time.
Unlike money or possessions, wecan't store it, we can't regain
it, we can't expand it.
Once a moment's gone, it's gone.
What do you think?
(00:35):
One of the biggest ways peoplewaste their time today?
Josh (00:38):
Well, I think there's several, but the biggest, I
would just say distractions.
It's one of the biggestculprits.
I mean, think about it socialmedia.
We binge watch shows because wecan stream anything without
commercials now, my kids don'teven know about commercials, by
the way or we just scrollendlessly on our phones.
We don't often realize thatwe're just wasting our time
(00:59):
throughout the day.
Mark (01:01):
That's so true, and the Bible actually warns us about
this.
Ephesians 5, verse 15 and 16says look carefully, then, how
you walk, not as unwise, but aswise, making the best use of
time because the days are evil.
God is really telling us hereto be intentional with our time,
(01:23):
not just avoiding sin oravoiding doing the bad things,
but to make sure that we'reusing it for things that matter.
It's kind of a conversation ofgood versus even better and what
we want to do in any of this,in all of our time, we want to
make sure that we're bringingglory to God.
Josh (01:43):
Right, and one of the clearest biblical examples you
kind of hinted at this of astruggle with time is found in
Luke 10, with the story of Maryand Martha.
Martha was busy preparing andserving, while Mary she was
sitting at Jesus' feet listeningto Him.
So Martha was doing a good work.
I think we struggle with that.
Was one doing something bad andwas one doing something good?
(02:06):
But there was a part of thisstory where Martha complained
that Mary wasn't helping andlisten to Jesus' response in
Luke 10.
This is found in verses 41 and42.
Martha, Martha, you're anxiousand troubled about many things,
but one thing is necessary Maryhas chosen the good portion,
which will not be taken awayfrom her.
Mark (02:28):
Yes.
So Martha wasn't doing anythingwrong.
In fact, she was doingsomething very good.
She was being hospitable Right,and Mary wasn't doing anything
wrong in that she was nothelping Martha.
They were both doing goodthings.
But one of those things,according to Jesus, is the
(02:52):
better portion or the goodportion, and Jesus said that
Mary was choosing the betteroption here.
Martha was distracted.
She couldn't see the betterbecause of the good things that
she was trying to do.
She really missed the bestthing, and that's being in the
(03:13):
presence of Jesus and hearinghim and learning from him.
What if Martha was sittingthere beside Mary?
Do you think at some pointmaybe Jesus and Martha and Mary
would get up and maybe goprepare the food together?
If they were both sitting therelistening, do you think that
(03:36):
they would have gone hungry?
No, they would not have gonehungry.
They would have eventuallygotten to the food, the
sustenance that they need.
And so, to be very clear,Martha wasn't doing anything
wrong here.
Josh (03:51):
You look back at those two verses that verse 41 and 42,
this really is a tough lessonfor us to learn.
I mean, how often do we getcaught up into a busy task?
The responsibilities are likeyou said.
They could be good things, butthe reality is we could be
neglecting what's most importanttime with God.
Mark (04:08):
Let's look at our main challenge today, our main
mission.
We're talking about redeemingthe time.
Ephesians 5.16 tells us toredeem the time because the days
are evil.
You know, if you think aboutthat phrase, the days are evil.
You know, there are lots ofways we can look at that, but
one of them is that, as wementioned before, you can't
(04:30):
store it, you can't preserve it,it's just going and it's
expiring.
As we talk, the day is expiringand we let time just slip away.
You know, we've got somestatistics here that we'd like
to take a look at and you know,this is probably a little bit
(04:52):
dated.
It may even be more, you know,in 2025.
But the average person spendsabout two and a half hours a day
on social media.
That's the average person.
Two and a half hours a day onsocial media that's the average
person.
I think if you're between, ifyou're a teenager, maybe into
(05:15):
your 20s, it could be as high asfour or five hours a day on
social media.
Americans, specifically, onaverage spend about eight years
of their life watching TV, justconsuming watching TV.
You know, josh, today mostpeople spend more time on their
phones than in a meaningfulconversation with another human
being.
We just.
You know, there's a specificphysiological issue that a lot
(05:39):
of people have in their necksbecause they are looking down.
We live in a college town.
You're driving through town.
My wife always has to remind methe students are back.
They walk into a crosswalkwithout even looking up from
their phone, and that's real.
It's dangerous.
But older adults do it as well.
(06:00):
We're not immune.
We like to maybe point fingers,maybe we don't.
We're not on social media asmuch, but we're probably wasting
time watching TV or doingsomething else whole time.
Josh (06:12):
We went to Chick-Fil-A recently
Mark (06:12):
I know where this is going .
Josh (06:20):
We were eating in the restaurant, uh, trying to make
sure our kids didn't tearsomething up.
Those two people just stared attheir phones the whole time,
not having a conversation
maybe they were having anargument via text which is a
great way to have an argumentright, they were just sitting
there going back and forthtyping furiously.
I will say though uh, the stats that you gave, that's
(06:43):
really really uncomfortable forme to listen to, especially like
8 years of our life watching TV.
It's just insane.
One of the things going back toJesus, he set an example of
just intentionality, like inJohn 9, 4, where he said we must
work the works of him who sentme while at stay, night's coming
(07:03):
, when no one can work.
Jesus understood the urgency ofusing his time wisely, the same
urgency that should shapereally how we go about our days.
Mark (07:15):
You know that, working the works of him who sent me.
There's the intentionalityright.
There's the purpose.
We go back to our foundationalverse that we based this podcast
on, in Ephesians 2.10, where wewere created in Christ for good
(07:35):
works.
There's the purpose, there'sthe mission of why we are
created.
You know, obviously we want tospend eternity in heaven with
God, but we're here, we're onthe earth.
What should we be doing?
Well, if you're created inChrist, you should be doing good
works right, because that'swhat we're made for, and he
purposefully established thosebeforehand, and that beforehand
(07:59):
is before time.
And so this is hard.
This is, this is our realitycheck.
You know, when we look at wealready mentioned a little bit
of it this, this the biggesttime wasters of our lives, the
endless scrolling, hey, and it'snot just social media, you know
(08:21):
.
It's not just.
You know, figure out what ourlatest pop star is doing or not
doing, or whatever.
It can be online shopping Imean the microphone that's
sitting between us here, josh, Idon't know.
I probably spent a few hoursbecause you know I can't just go
buy something.
(08:41):
You know, I've got a, I've gota research, I'm an engineer, I
got to research and I need data,and so I'm going to watch, you
know, 15 videos of reviews.
Josh (08:52):
You're going to maybe send me three of them.
Well, I'm filtering for you.
Mark (08:55):
I'm filtering just so I'm giving you the good stuff that
that we can.
We can make our, our, ourselection, informed selection.
But it's hey, it's also news,you know, it could be sports.
There's just this, the end.
Endless scrolling.
Josh (09:10):
Yeah.
Mark (09:11):
You know.
Another one is theentertainment.
I mean binge watching ourfavorite Netflix, you know
series or Hulu or Prime or Apple.
Josh (09:24):
I want to admit something here.
I went to a birthday party fora child last weekend, had my
phone watching the Auburn game.
Mark (09:34):
Yeah, I've never done that , Josh.
I don't know why.
What is your motivation behindthat?
But you mentioned game.
I mean video games today, theamount of time that people
Luckily I never got into videogames.
You know, I had the one.
The one I have is in a museumsomewhere right now.
That's the Pong or somethingit's.
(09:55):
I'm thankful that I reallynever was bit by that, but I
know a lot of people will do itand it's a way for them to relax
.
You know, from Elon Musk all theway down to you know, your,
your average college student.
It's a way to decompress and Iget that, but it's mindless and
(10:22):
it's not something that weshould waste too much time on.
Another one is justovercommitting.
We say yes to everything.
We spread ourselves too thinand you know that is something
that is very, very hard for usto say and to say no or no,
thank you.
I'm sorry, I just don't havethe time to spend in the way
that I would want to spend onthat project.
(10:42):
I just but we say yes and wejust stack things up over and
over and over and over on top ofeach other.
Josh (10:48):
I would say we probably have.
Most of our listeners areChristians and this is something
that we really struggle with.
But you said something to me acouple of years ago that I can
say no and I don't have to havean explanation of why I'm saying
no.
We get so uncomfortable becausewe just say yes, but the times
where we get bold enough in theconfidence to say no, we feel
like well, let me give you thisbig story of why I can't say no.
Mark (11:11):
Yeah, we defend the no Right
Josh (11:12):
and we don't even have to do that
We can just say no politely.
Mark (11:15):
Yeah Well, and the politely matters.
I appreciate you thinking of me, but, no, I'm not going to be
able to do that and you can endit there.
You don't have to go.
You can virtue signal.
Look, I'm volunteering at thefood bank and I'm, you know, I'm
doing all these other thingsand you know I just don't have.
(11:36):
I don't have the time.
Graciously, decline and over aperiod of time.
This is what we hope in thispodcast is that we figure out
how, as it says back inEphesians 5, and we first talked
about we want to use wisdom notas unwise, but as wise.
We want to use wisdom on how,and part of the wisdom is saying
(12:00):
no to the things that don'treally matter.
Another one that can contributeis just being disorganized,
just losing time because wedon't really plan ahead, and
that's something that it's atool.
Planning can help us manage ourtime a little better.
They have these things I don'tknow, josh, have you heard of
(12:21):
them?
They're called calendars.
What's that?
It's a calendar.
It starts with a C, not a K.
You can get them on your phone.
You can get them on yourcomputer.
Even in the ancient times, theyprinted them on paper, wow, and
we hung them on the wall wayback in the old days.
I'll have to Google that.
(12:49):
Yeah days, I'll have to Googlethat.
Yeah, yeah, there's a video.
Josh (12:51):
I'm sure here's something else to think about.
Are we prioritizing the urgentover the important?
We fill our schedules withtasks, but we forget about our
time with God.
Mark (12:54):
You know, there is something called the Eisenhower
box.
It's four quadrants.
It's a picture of a square withfour smaller squares inside of
it and we've got important, notimportant, urgent, not urgent.
So it doesn't take a genius tofigure out the not important,
not urgent things we shouldn'tbe doing at all.
(13:18):
So the not urgent but importantare things that we need to.
Those are the hardest.
They're important but they'renot urgent.
(13:40):
We have to make time to do theimportant things.
If someone is going to ask youto read a scripture at church,
you're going to read it becausethere's an emergency there.
You're going to.
You're going to read your Bible.
Before you get up in front of agroup of a few hundred people
and read the Bible, right, um.
So you're going.
It's.
It's urgent and important.
(14:00):
You need to do it right now.
Urgent and important, you needto do it right now.
If it's urgent and important,you need to do it right now.
Someone is suffering.
You know the need.
Someone is sick.
Get on that right now.
And here's the thing If it'snot important but someone else
thinks it's urgent, there'swhere we waste a lot of time as
(14:22):
well.
If you look at that, those fourquadrants.
We shouldn't be spending anytime in the not important
whether it's not urgent or notimportant or not important but
somebody thinks it's urgent butit's really not.
So what we want to do is spendour time on the important,
(14:46):
urgent things.
So that's being responsive to aneed when we see it, and the
other part is not really urgentbut it's important, it's about.
One of those examples would bethings like building a
relationship with somebody Notsuper urgent, yeah, I need to
spend more time with them.
Okay, then make time for thatimportant aspect of what you're
(15:07):
trying to do and leave all thenon-important stuff out of our
daily life.
You know, jesus really modeledthis when it comes to the
balance that he had in his life.
He prayed, he served, he madetime for other people.
He actually made time forhimself because he would
(15:29):
withdraw, and I have a feelingthat a lot of that time that he
withdrew was he was inconversation with God and he was
building his own relationshipwith God, building his own
stamina to do what God had askedhim to do when he came to live
his life here on earth.
We have to take an honest lookat where our time is going and
(15:52):
ask and here's a super importantquestion when we're trying to
think of that Eisenhower box, isthis drawing me closer to God
or is it pulling me away?
Josh (16:06):
I was just thinking about what you said early on in the
podcast and putting it togetherwith what you just said.
We start looking at time.
As we don't get it back, itdoes change our mindset with it
altogether.
Well, let's, let's shift gearsto our mission for this week for
everyone.
This, I'm going to be honest,this one's a little bit.
Mark (16:23):
I got a feeling you're going to, we're going to, we're
going to hurt some feelings.
Josh (16:27):
Yeah, we may get a bad rating.
It's a little uncomfortableeven for us, because you know
we'll be falling suit with thistoo, but the first thing that
that's a part of your mission isaudit your time.
What that means is we're askingyou to track where your hours
are actually going each day andidentify where you're wasting
your time.
Mark (16:47):
So can you, can you do that?
So you write that down with apiece of paper, like in pencil,
Josh (16:51):
apparently you guys had calendars that you printed out
and you had on the wall, so youprobably could write it, but
there's apps for that too.
Oh, there's an app.
Yeah, you got it.
The second thing that we'reasking to do this and this
really goes hand in hand withauditing your time is removing
one major distraction.
This is the one that's hard forme to even say.
We're asking you to choosesomething, whether it's social
(17:13):
media there's a lot of forms ofthat
except the made 4 good social
yeah that's approved.
Mark (17:19):
Yeah, okay, that's a pretty pretty good.
Josh (17:22):
So social media, tv, excessive phone You've talked
about a number of ways that wecould do that and we're asking
you to cut it down this week.
So, to be clear, choosingsomething meaning one we want
you to cut it down this week andthen we want you to replace
that with something meaningful.
So, in other words, instead ofscrolling, use the time for
(17:43):
maybe something I don't know,like prayer, bible study or
serving with someone in need.
Mark (17:49):
OK, I got a bonus for you and it kind of fits in to that
last one that you mentioned.
But here's a novel idea howabout spend 30 minutes this week
having a meaningfulconversation with somebody?
I don't know, maybe a familymember.
Maybe go meet a friend forcoffee Josh and I do that all
(18:11):
the time or maybe praying withsomeone who needs encouragement,
but we're talking about 30minutes of conversation.
I'm talking about conversationwith your voice, maybe best in
the same room with the person.
Obviously, you could callsomebody on the phone and have
(18:31):
this conversation, particularly,you know, if it's a family
member that lives far away.
Right, have a 30 minuteconversation with a real person.
And I don't mean maybe you knowthe service support desk at the
local store where you're tryingto get something returned.
These are meaningfulconversations.
(18:51):
This is about wanting to knowhow they're doing and is there
something that I can do?
You know, to help?
I can do to help.
So that's the bonus challenge.
So we've got about four thingsthat we want to try to do this
week.
I'm just going to review themreal quick.
(19:12):
We're going to audit time.
We're going to turn on thatfeature on our phone where it
tracks our time, how much wouldwe use?
We'll not be surprised whatthat is.
We're going to try to remove oneof those major distractions.
It could be something on thephone, but it also could be I
don't know YouTube TV that's onethat I spend a lot of time in.
(19:35):
Or it could just be other typesof excessive phone use, you
know, scrolling through news orwhatever, and when I just cut
that out, we're going to replacethat with something that's
meaningful.
So instead of that scrolling,we're going to use time for
prayer or Bible study.
(19:56):
We did an analysis previously,josh and I did, where we found
out that if you took the two anda half hours a day that people
spend on social media, how long,if you spent two and a half
hours a day reading your Bible,how long would it take for you
to read the New Testament?
You could do that in a week.
(20:16):
One week, if you just tooksocial media out and put the
word of God in, you could readthe entire New Testament in a
week,
Josh (20:25):
which is wild, and you know.
Also, with the Bible app, itcould read to you.
Mark (20:29):
Okay, Do you know how to read right?
Josh (20:31):
I do, but it's also fun to have someone read to you.
Mark (20:34):
Okay, Well no, I get that and I do that sometimes too, and
particularly like when you'redoing something where you can
just check out in your mind,like exercising or working in
the yard.
Just pop the headphones on SonyWalkman, pop that in and listen
to the Bible.
Actually, it's probably morelike AirPod Pros these days.
(20:56):
Yeah, there you go.
Well, I wanted to say one of thethings we'll try to do after
this episode is we're on everyform of social media.
We have X, instagram andFacebook.
We'll try to do after thisepisode is we have, you know,
we're on every form of socialmedia.
We have X, instagram andFacebook.
We'll try to put this list outthere for a reminder, because I
do like that.
We said it, you know, try tosay it multiple times.
We also understand thesemissions.
There's a lot to them sometimes, so we'll get these put out
(21:17):
there on our forms of socialmedia.
Okay, well, look.
That's it for today's episodeof Made for Good.
If this conversation inspiredyou to make some changes, maybe
it was challenging to you andyou want to hear more about it.
Make sure you subscribe anddon't miss the next one.
Josh (21:40):
Well, we hope that you found this valuable.
Consider sharing with a friendUntil next time.
Go out and use your time wisely.
You were made for it.
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