In episode 197, “Make the Most of It”, Brooke & Faren discuss the meaning of Ephesians 5:16-17 in the Bible. Hear what Paul says to the Ephesians about using your time wisely and being intentional with your actions. Learn how to pray about it, talk about it with others, and live out how this scripture applies to everyday life. The Ephesians mini series begins on episode 194 and goes through episode 198 of the Witty & Gritty podcast.
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Reading about Intentionality
If you’ve been following our Ephesians Mini Series, we have worked through chapters 1-4 of the book. If you haven’t had a chance to go back and read the text for yourself, we highly encourage you to do so whenever you get a chance. Today is all about how to make the most of it when it comes to opportunities. We’re working from Ephesians 5:16-17:
“Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.”
Ephesians 5:16-17
Don’t you just love how simple this is? Make the most of it, and be intentional with your actions. In other words, spend your time wisely in the eyes of the Lord. Have you ever spent an afternoon at home, look up, and realize you did a lot of things, but got nothing accomplished? You’re not alone in this feeling. We’re here to help you see where your time is disappearing, and what we can do to be better at intentionality.
Praying Over Priorities
We often find ourselves saying the excuse of “I don’t have enough time.” Everyone also know that we all have the same amount of time in a day. How are others doing it well while we seem to never have time for the things that matter most? More on that in a minute, but first we need to step back and do the most important thing first.
The best way to figure out our intentionality issue is to pray about it. Ask God to show you where you’re not capitalizing on your actions and time, and He will show you. Be humble enough to listen to what He says when He points it out, and follow up with asking about how to step into action. God will guide your next steps, so ask, listen, and obey. Hone in on aligning your priorities and the things you’re doing to do those well.
Talk About Accountability
Have you every thought, “How do they do it all?” We get this question asked to a lot and here’s the short answer: we don’t. We absolutely don’t do it all, and we’d be silly to think that we ever could accomplish all the things on our own. It takes some serious thought work, aligning priorities, and stepping into action. We go through several examples of how we do this on the episode, so be sure to scroll back up and press play.
We’ve made a time audit you can use to help yourself find your priorities, and put a plan into action. You can email us and we’ll get it to you. This is also where your team comes into play. Our home group has spent significant time bouncing ideas off of each other, testing them out, and keep each other accountable with the follow through. We check back in, tweak, and try again as each life phase comes to us.
You can even find ways to get creative with your inner circle and support one another. Here are a few ways our home group has implemented this:
- Pick up/drop off groceries
- Make a double batch of a meal and share
- Bring the kids to your place so they can run an errand alone
This list goes on, but the important thing is to make sure you both feel good about the idea, and that it’s reciprocated in a way that makes sense for all parties involved. Hear more tips on this in the episode, “Make the Most of It.”
Tell Kids About Time Management
As kids grow, we must teach them to make the most of it, whether that is on a test, with friendships, or making memories (obviously with healthy boundaries in place). Yes, this goes for the unhappy times as well. We walk through the examples of if your kid happens to be a bench player instead of a field player. We have extensive years in coaching, so if your child competes in any way, make sure you make the most of it, and listen to the episode (scroll up and press play).
We also cover several practical tips just to help your week flow more smoothly. We have tried and tested everything we talk about on this week’s episode, so tune into hear what works best, and how you can adapt it to your family situation. Teaching kids time management and planning are vital to their success when they are out on their own.
We hope you enjoyed episode 197, “Make the Most of It”, through our © Read Pray Talk Tell Method. Now it’s up to you to work through the Bible chapter discussed, pray about this verse using the prompts given, have biblical community around this verse, and go point others to Christ with the tips we give. Remember, when you read, pray, talk, tell consistently, you’ll grow your faith in God more deeply. Tune in next week to hear another breakdown of a Bible verse!
