5 signs that time has become your enemy
“Oh man, is it already 12:10?!”
As my eyes catch the time, I feel an anxious tension running through my stomach. It is almost time to pick up the kids from school. “But I am not done!”
My fingers, which only moments ago were tapping the keyboard of my laptop like the hooves of horses running over hard ground, suddenly hesitate to move. From the corner of my eye, I can see my to-do list staring at me with frowning, angry eyes, passively-aggressively demanding that I continue ticking things off.
Out of the thirteen things on my list, only five are marked with a pink highlighter. I take a deep, long, discouraged breath. “Why can a day not have more hours in it?”
Maybe you recognize this: the mad race called life, trying somehow to become faster than time itself.
For years, I raced against the clock, day and night. The nights never seemed to have enough hours to sleep. The days never seemed to have enough hours to be patiently present with my children, keep the house in order, finish the ministry work, answer the messages, remember the appointments and get through everything else that needed to happen.
Every day, I was desperately trying to reach some kind of finish line—a finish line I never actually reached. I could never say, “I am done,” “I did enough for today,” or “There is nothing left to do.” There was always something more waiting for me, always another thing that needed to be done.
When Rushing Becomes Normal
One day, I left the house in a rush. Actually, I don’t think I ever left the house not in a rush.
As I reversed the car out of the parking space, my mind was somewhere else entirely. “Did I lock the house? Did I switch off the stove?” No matter how hard I tried to remember, I had almost no recollection of what I had been doing just five minutes before jumping into the car.
As my frustration started to boil, I suddenly heard a loud—
BANG!
“Oh no. I hit something.”
I jumped out of the car, almost too afraid to look at the damage. Our backlight was smashed into a thousand pieces on the ground.
There had been no emergency. Nobody was chasing me. I was simply rushing.
And standing there looking at those broken pieces, something clicked inside of me.
This is not normal. This is no way to live.
In that moment, it was as if God whispered to my heart, “Nicol, time is a gift from Me to you. Time is not your enemy.”
That hit me deeply.
For years, I had treated time like something that was constantly working against me. The clock was the enemy. Deadlines were the enemy. School pick-up time was the enemy. Bedtime was the enemy. Appointments were the enemy.
Even interruptions felt like enemies because they were stealing minutes from everything I was desperately trying to accomplish.
But what if time itself was never the problem?
Time Is a Gift
Time is one of the most precious gifts we have been given. I have attended too many funerals of passionate, vibrant young men and women who did not receive as much of that gift as they hoped they would.
People who did not get to watch their children grow up. People who did not get the privilege of growing old beside their husband or wife. People who did not get another twenty years to finish their dreams, visit the places they wanted to visit or do all the things they thought they would do someday.
And yet, how easily we can spend the time we do have wishing it away.
I just need to get through this week. I can’t wait until the children are older. Once this project is finished, life will calm down. After this season, I will rest.
But life does not begin when the to-do list is finished.
This is life.
This ordinary Tuesday. This school run. This conversation. This meal. This moment sitting beside someone you love. This breath.
The Bible speaks about time very differently from the way our hurried culture often does.
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
— Psalm 90:12
Notice that Moses did not pray, “Lord, give me more hours in the day so that I can accomplish everything.” He prayed for wisdom to live the days he had been given well.
Ecclesiastes also tells us:
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1
There is a time to work and there is a time to stop working. There is a time to serve and there is a time to receive. There is a time to move quickly and there is a time to sit down, breathe deeply and notice that your child is telling you something that matters deeply to them.
When everything becomes urgent, we lose the ability to recognize what is actually important.
5 Signs That Time Has Become Your Enemy
Maybe you do not consciously think of time as your enemy. I certainly didn’t. But your body and your daily habits may be telling a different story.
1. You Have Almost No Conscious Memory of Large Parts of Your Day
Do you remember what you ate for breakfast this morning? Do you remember the taste of your coffee? Do you remember the weather when you walked outside? Do you remember something your child said to you?
Sometimes we are physically present while our minds are already living fifteen minutes, five hours or three days ahead. We move through our routines on autopilot: shower, pack lunches, drive, work, cook, clean, answer messages, sleep, repeat.
Eventually, entire days disappear without us really having inhabited them.
We were there, but we were not fully there.
2. Interruptions Make You Anxious or Angry
Imagine that your child’s school calls right now. They are sick and need to be picked up. What is your very first internal reaction?
Of course, you may care deeply that your child is unwell. But somewhere underneath that concern, is there also a voice saying, “No. Not today. I have too much to do. How am I going to fit this in?”
Or perhaps somebody calls because they need to talk. Your spouse wants your attention. Your toddler spills something when you are trying to leave the house. Someone knocks on the door.
Suddenly you feel irritated—not necessarily because the interruption itself is terrible, but because your schedule has become so tightly packed that there is no room for humanity.
People begin to feel like interruptions to our lives instead of part of our lives.
3. Your Body Is Constantly Bracing Against the Clock
Pay attention to your body for a moment. What are your shoulders doing? What about your jaw? And your breathing?
Sometimes we become so accustomed to living under pressure that we do not realize how tense our bodies have become. We breathe shallowly, clench our muscles, rush while eating and walk quickly from one room to another.
We constantly feel as if we should already be somewhere else.
Only when we consciously take one slow, deep breath do we realize how much pressure we have been carrying.
Your body may be carrying what your mind has learned to ignore.
4. You Measure the Value of Your Day by How Much You Accomplished
When you lie in bed at night, what determines whether you believe it was a good day?
Is it how many boxes you ticked? How productive you were? How clean the house is? How many emails you answered? How much work you completed?
Productivity can be wonderful. Work can be deeply meaningful. Getting things done is not the enemy.
But productivity is a terrible measure of human worth.
Jesus lived approximately thirty-three years on earth, yet He was never portrayed as frantically racing through His days trying to maximize every available minute. He stopped for people. He attended meals. He withdrew to pray. He slept in a boat. He noticed individuals in crowds. He allowed children to come near Him.
He lived purposefully without living frantically.
Sometimes the most meaningful thing you did today will never appear on your to-do list: listening to your daughter, holding your baby, calling someone who was struggling, sitting quietly with God, resting because your body needed it, laughing with your husband.
Those moments count too.
5. You Keep Postponing Life Until Everything Is Finished
Perhaps one of the clearest signs that time has become your enemy is when you continually tell yourself, “I’ll rest when…” “I’ll enjoy life after…” “I’ll spend more time with my children once…” “I’ll take care of myself when things calm down.”
But there is a problem.
Things rarely completely calm down.
One season ends and another begins. One project finishes and another appears. One child becomes more independent while another enters a completely different stage. The inbox fills again. The dishes return. The laundry returns. The responsibilities return.
If we wait until everything is finished before allowing ourselves to live, we may wait our entire lives.
You Were Never Meant to Finish Everything
This truth has been surprisingly freeing for me:
I will never finish everything.
There will probably be unanswered messages when I go to sleep tonight. There will be things that remain on tomorrow’s list. There may be toys lying somewhere they should not be. There may be work that could have been done better.
And that does not automatically mean I failed.
I am a finite human being. I have twenty-four hours in a day. I need sleep. I need food. I need connection. I need time with God. I need moments where I am not producing anything at all.
Perhaps accepting those limits is not laziness.
Perhaps it is humility.
God is limitless. I am not.
“In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.”
— Psalm 127:2
There is a difference between faithfully working and living as though everything depends on us.
Sometimes our frantic hurry quietly reveals a belief that says, If I stop, everything will fall apart.
But God never asked us to carry the whole world. That position is already taken.
What If You Stopped Fighting Time?
Imagine waking up tomorrow and no longer seeing the clock as something chasing you.
What if instead of asking, “How much can I squeeze into today?” you asked:
“God, how would You like me to receive this day?”
What if your goal was not to accomplish everything possible, but to be faithful with what actually belongs in this season?
Perhaps some things still need to get done. Perhaps you need better boundaries. Perhaps you need to remove commitments. Perhaps you need to plan better. Perhaps you simply need to slow down enough to become present again.
There will still be school runs. There will still be deadlines. There will still be responsibilities. There will still be mornings when everyone needs to get out of the house quickly.
Living slowly does not mean living without responsibility.
It means refusing to treat your entire life like an emergency.
Receive Today
Maybe today you do not need another productivity technique. Maybe you need permission to stop trying to outrun the clock.
Look around you. Notice where you are. Notice the person sitting beside you. Take one deep breath. Drink your coffee while it is still warm. Listen when your child tells you the unnecessarily long story. Step outside for five minutes. Pray without simultaneously checking your phone.
Leave one thing unfinished.
Time is not chasing me. Time is not my enemy. Time is a gift.
You will never have enough time to do everything that could possibly be done. But by the grace of God, you have enough time to live the life He has actually given you today.
So perhaps the question is not, “How can I get more hours?”
Perhaps the better question is:
“How can I become more present in the hours I have?”
Because a life poured out does not have to be a life rushed through.