06/15/2026
1 Chronicles 12:32 “They were men who understood their times.” This is in reference to the sons of Issachar. They had wisdom in the way they dealt with the culture around them .
To have a successful life , we too, must understand our times. I think understadning our times falls into the three main categories of understadning . Our time, our place, and our limits.
Time. We begin with time. We must know about human history, the culture we live in, and our personal time.
Human history : Oliver Burkman in-his book “Four Thousand Weeks” tells us that the average human life span is just that, four thousand weeks. He also helps us put this in perspective by reminding us that human civilization is only about six thousand years old. At all times, in each Age, there were a handful of people who lived to be 100.
If we could trace this back we would see clearly that all of human civilization is only 60 lifetimes. Maybe ancient civilization isn’t quite as ancient as we thought.
We do well to understand the unfolding of history, and God’s Providential hand in it. This is turn helps us to correctly interpret our own times, as we mentioned earlier.
But what about our personal time? What about our lives?\
Psalm 31 :14 “But I trust in you, LORD, I say , You are my God. My times are in your hands.”
Psalm 37:18 “The blameless spend their days under the LORD’S care, and their inheritance will endure forever.
And , of course, Psalm 39:4-5 “Show me, LORD< my life’s end, and the number of my days, Let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days as a mere handbreadth, the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. "
God, in His Glory, operates outside of time and space. He exists outside of these limits as well. He works with in them in order to have relationship with us.
We are not machines. We are embodied souls. Thus we cannot pursue productivity at all cost- we cannot treat ourselves like machines. To be human is to exist with constraints, to exist in a state of a series of limitations. We read Time Management books, and chase productivity hacks,. but the truth is our time will always feel a bit unmanageable, like control is not in our grasp. Our time feels out of control because it is. We were never meant to control time, Exist in time, yes.
When Adam walked with God in the Garden , in the cool of that day, he was using his time wot the Best and Highest end. It was what he was made for, face to face communion with his creator. That, That is time well spent.
We have a creator who longs to spend time with us , If we aren’t using our time in community with Him, then we are wasting it.
