Episode Transcript  

One

The Gift and Responsibility of Time

It is a strange paradox that the most precious gifts in life often bring the greatest responsibilities. Children are a tremendous gift but caring for them is also a tremendous responsibility. A home is a great gift but it takes work to maintain it. And time is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. Because it is so precious, it also carries a serious responsibility.

At certain stages of life, we feel that we have almost no time. Work, children, and family needs consume every hour. At other stages, especially after retirement, we may suddenly possess hours, days, and even decades that are no longer structured for us.

The question becomes: What will I do with all this time?

Sometimes we escape the responsibility of time by losing ourselves in superficial things, endless news, television, social media, and scrolling. But that is not how we should handle something precious. Time is the raw material of our earthly life. So what is my time for?

God has given us six fundamental ingredients for a well-ordered life: friendship with God, physical goods, relationships, work, knowledge, and beauty. These are the six essential ingredients for a beautiful life.

Two

Friendship with God

The first purpose of our time is friendship with God. Keep that in mind: prayer is friendship with God. It means talking to Him from the heart, listening to Him in meditation, and then doing what He asks through a concrete resolution. That is what we are doing right now in the Rosary. We listen to the Word of God. We reflect upon it. Then we make a resolution to put it into practice.

Eventually, God will invite us simply to rest in His presence, in holy idleness and unconcern, lovingly attentive to the God who dwells within us.

If, at first, you are rushed or distracted, that is okay. The most important thing is to spend time with God every day, to establish the habit and the routine. Then we want the friendship to deepen. We want to give God time when we are not rushed, when we are fully present and have nowhere else to be.

You know what it is like when someone who loves you simply wants to be with you, fully present, unhurried, with no better place to be than with you. God wants that kind of friendship with you.

Are you giving Him enough time for that friendship to grow?

Three

Physical Goods and Work

Grace builds on nature. If our physical nature becomes exhausted and disordered, it becomes much more difficult to pray, work, and love others well. That is why some of our time must be devoted to physical goods: sleep, nutritious food, exercise, and proper care for our health. Sleep is not wasted time. It is one of the ways God restores the body and mind He has given us. Sometimes our vocation requires us to sacrifice sleep. But routinely neglecting it because we are scrolling, watching shows, working unnecessarily late, or refusing to accept our limitations is not generosity. Eventually, everyone around us pays the price.

We also need nutritious food, movement, strength, and healthy exertion. We do not exercise merely to look better. We exercise so that we remain capable of fulfilling our vocation and serving others with energy. Then we must give time to our work. Work means using our abilities to accomplish the good God has actually entrusted to us. It may be paid or unpaid and may take place in an office, a classroom, a workshop, or a home.

The heart of work is using our abilities to accomplish some real good for others. But remember the phrase: the good God has actually entrusted to us. We are not responsible for meeting every need, accepting every request, or solving every problem. We should not take on responsibilities God never asked us to carry while neglecting prayer, health, our closest relationships, or the work that truly belongs to us.

Four

Knowledge and Beauty

Our time must also nourish the powers of the soul. The intellect needs truth, and the emotions need beauty. Read good books. Learn something worthwhile. Develop a useful skill. Seek the truth you actually need to live your life well. Curiosity is the healthy desire to know the truth that concerns our life. But we can also spend hours consuming news, controversies, personalities, and events over which we have no responsibility and no control.

We can acquire an enormous quantity of information while gaining very little wisdom. Reject useless information that distracts and exhausts you. Nourish your mind with the truth you need. Then give your heart genuine beauty. Walk in nature. Listen to beautiful music. Read great books. Take delight in a play well executed. Enjoy good food. Learn to cook, garden, play an instrument, or make something with your hands.

Beauty refreshes the soul, awakens gratitude, and reminds us that life is good. But entertainment can become a counterfeit for beauty. Instead of renewing us, it numbs us. Instead of making us more alive, it leaves us restless and dissatisfied.

Choose what leaves you more alive, more grateful, more in love with God, and more at peace.

Five

Relationships and a Plan of Life

Finally, our time is meant for relationships. God has entrusted people to us: our spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, extended family, and friends. But relationships do not remain strong automatically. They weaken when we continually give our time and attention to everything else.

Friendship has a simple formula: Time + doing something good together + good conversation = friendship.

We must spend time with people, share good activities with them, and learn to have real conversations, to ask good questions, listen attentively, and share our lives honestly. So who are you sharing your life with? Who really knows you? Whom are you seeking to know, understand, and love? God has given us six fundamental ingredients for a well-ordered life: friendship with God, physical goods, relationships, work, knowledge, beauty.

Most of us are neglecting at least one of them. But the answer may not be to add one more thing to an overloaded life. We may first need to remove something that is wasting our time, or something God never asked us to carry.

So, for your resolution, ask yourself: Which of these six ingredients is being neglected in my life? What distraction, unnecessary activity, or responsibility God has not entrusted to me must I limit, eliminate, delegate, or share to make room for it? Choose one concrete change. Identify what is missing, remove one obstacle, and take one practical step.

Your time is your life. Use it to deepen your friendship with God, care for your physical nature, strengthen your relationships, accomplish the work God has entrusted to you, nourish your mind with truth, delight your heart with beauty, and prepare yourself for heaven.

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