One of the privileges of working at a Christian university is that I get the chance to work with outstanding colleagues who love the Lord and demonstrate it in their work. One of those fellow professors, Matt Kimbrough, just published a book titled, “Reclaiming the Church Family: A Solution to the Corporate-Church Crisis.” In his text, Kimbrough lays out the challenges of using a corporate mindset as the root metaphor for church functioning and points believers back to the Scriptural metaphor of family.
As I started reading through his text, I ran across a comment that got me thinking about how we spend our time. Kimbrough points out that all metaphors eventually breakdown, and to explain his point, he uses the comparison between time and money as an example. Referencing Lakoff and Johnson, Kimbrough points out that we regularly use the concrete example of money to represent the more abstract concept of time. We describe time as valuable, we talk about “saving” and “spending” time. We even use the language of loaning time out with statements like, “Can I borrow a minute of your time.” Kimbrough then points out the obvious breakdown in the metaphor: Purchasing using credit. He makes clear that buying time on credit doesn’t really work. It’s not like someone can be sent to collections or “declare time bankruptcy” as Kimbrough puts it.
What strikes me as interesting though is the fact that many people do in fact live as though they are borrowing time against the future. In our debt riddled society, I wonder if this outcome should be expected. I further wonder if, in part, this is the starting point for burnout. For some people, in their efforts to accomplish more and more, they begin “writing checks their bodies can’t cash.” It’s easy to start staying up too late, working longer and longer hours, and blurring the lines between their work time and personal time, especially for pastors. Thus, people begin to borrow against their own internal resources. The problem is that chronic over-spenders don’t realize when they have outspent their reserves, and this does come back to bite them with interest.
I’d wager that you have experienced this before. You’ve hit those points in life or ministry when you’re feeling a little more tired, when tasks take just a little longer than they used to, and all of a sudden, time debt begins to grow. When we go long enough without making needed deposits, when we stay overdrawn long enough, we cross a line with different consequences. We move into burnout, and the road back, like being sent to collections, has additional cost. It’s not just a mark against time where things take longer anymore. When we are perpetually overtaxed, our immune system becomes compromised. We are much more prone to get sick. We are not intended to function this way, but many attempt it, and the results can be disastrous because Kimbrough is right: We can’t “declare time bankruptcy and reset the clock.” Time just continues to slip away, and the road back to health is circuitous.
So, what can we do about it?
- Stop spending time as though you can borrow against the future without consequence. Time is a limited resource. Treat it that way.
- Build a better (usually, more honest) time budget. Be realistic about what you can achieve and how much rest you need to achieve it.
- Prioritize taking care of yourself if you haven’t been doing so. Just like oxygen masks on an airplane, if you don’t take care of you first, you will not be able to help others for very long.