Take Back Your Time - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - April 25, 2025

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Take Back Your Time
By Rick Warren

“If any of you needs wisdom to know what you should do, you should ask God, and he will give it to you.” James 1:5 (GW)

God wants his children to get their proper rest. If you’re burning the candle at both ends, you’re not as bright as you think you are. You’re going to burn out!

You’re probably given more opportunities in one week than you could possibly take on in one month. You need to learn to manage your opportunities—because if you don’t, you’re going to drown in them. There are plenty of things you can do with your life that may not be worth doing. 

When you’re faced with an opportunity, you need to take three steps.

First, ask yourself, is it worth it? Is that opportunity worth your time? Your energy? Your effort? Your reputation? Your money? Is it worth your life? Every time you give yourself to an activity, you’re exchanging your life for it. Why? Because your time is your life.

Second, understand what you’re going to have to give up. What will you give up in order to do this new thing?

Most of us know how to make a to-do list. I want to challenge you to make a what-matters-most list for your life. You need to decide what’s most important by asking God what matters most to him. This won’t just help you know what to put on your to-do list. It will also help you know what to take off your list.

James 1:5 says, “If any of you needs wisdom to know what you should do, you should ask God, and he will give it to you” (GW).

Third, learn to say “no.” We’ve become addicted to today’s speed of life, and it’s costing us our health, our relationships, and our walk with God. We need to slow down by saying “no” to the things that don’t make the what-matters-most list. We need to decide how to spend our time so we’re not wasting our lives.

My friends in Africa have a saying: “The West has the watches, but Africa has the time.”

We may know how to fill our time, but we are not as good at taking it back. We don’t have time because we don’t make the time. And we make time by asking if it’s worth it, understanding what to give up, and then learning to say “no” to what hurts us in the long run. Only then will we have the wisdom to know what action to take with each new opportunity we face.

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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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