"I'm sorry; I just can't this week.  I'm too busy."

"If only I had more time, then I could finally get around to doing that.  I'm just too busy."

We've all said such words before.

We endlessly feel like we have no time to do anything as we rush around, complaining of our extreme busyness.

We explain that we'd go to the gym if we had more time, that we'd call our grandma if life ever slows down, or that we'd help a friend with a project if things would get less busy.

Years can pass, and we suddenly realize that we never got around to all these things we were going to do when our schedule cleared up.

Yet, each day of those years was filled.
We chose how to fill each day.

Maybe it's not that we "are so busy" and do not have the time to do certain things so much as that we do not make the time.

We all have twenty-four hours to fill each day.

Ultimately, from the time we get up to the time we go to bed, we choose what is going to fill those hours, fill our days, and thereby fill our lives.

What we choose shows what really matters to us - what's important.  It reveals our priorities.

We may decide that going to school to get an education or going to work to provide for ourselves and our families is important.
We may decide that talking to friends or co-workers is important.

But every choice we make comes at a sacrifice of another choice.

We may decide that "me-time" watching more of our favorite TV show is more important than talking with our family.
We may decide that meeting a friend for dinner is more important than learning how to play the piano as we've been meaning to for weeks.

Not all of the choices we make at the neglection of other choices are necessarily bad.
Some are simply personal preference.

We can face problems, however, when our priorities cause us to neglect our responsibilities - both our responsibilities to other people and to God.

Ultimately, what we choose to do with our time reveals where our heart is -
or, more so, it reveals who is in control of our heart, and therefore our actions and time.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" (Proverbs 4:23 NIV).

It's not that we don't have time to do the things we say we'll do "when we're less busy."
It's that we are choosing to not make time to do them.

We choose what we do.  Ultimately, we are showing by our actions what is important enough for us to make time for in our busy lives.

"Don't waste your breath proclaiming what's really important to you.  How you spend your time says it all ... There's no sense talking about priorities.  Priorities reveal themselves.  We're all transparent against the face of the clock" (Eric Zorn).

Our actions reveal what's important to us.  What's important comes from what has taken first place in our heart, from who is in control of our lives.

And He has asked to be King over us - over every part of us - which includes letting Him be Lord of our time.

We still face choices, though.

We can pick up our phones and check out, or we can tune in to the needs of people around us.

We can use our time to creep on other people's lives, or we can purpose to actually spend time with people.

We can keep choosing to procrastinate on that one task because this show is just so good, or we can buckle down and see our dreams come true.

If it's important enough to you, you will make time to do it.

If He's important enough to you, you're going to let Him be King and surrender your everything - time and all.

Our excuses of "I just don't have the time" and "I'm just too busy" seem so ridiculously flimsy.

We aren't doing some things not because we are too busy, but because something else is simply more important.

We make time for whatever is important to us.

It's time to stop using this excuse, and to face up to our choices.

It's time to take a look at our lives and see where our priorities lie.

It's time to see what we are willing to sacrifice and what we are willing to choose to make time for.

There is simply no such thing as "too busy."

We all are given 24 hours in a day to fill.

We don't simply "not have time."
We make time for what matters.

And the choices are up to us.

Summer.

The sun had soaked my skin as I went on runs.

The keyboard had newly settled in my room and emitted sweet music.

The to do's were forgotten in moments of spontaneity - us sisters breaking into car ride dance parties, running into friends, sudden dress shopping, long nights of Netflix episodes, and doing life together.

I thought over the moments of happiness, utter confusion, and frustration.
I felt overwhelmed by both the progress and hardness of life's growing pains.

It's been a summer of learning.

A summer where I've realized that
there's a point when we have to set aside the big questions and live
it's more easily said than done
it all can look & feel so much different in the moment
in the real world, there are very rarely clean-cut answers
some things cannot be understood until experienced.  

It's not been a summer of "I've learned" because I am not sure life really is that way.  It's been a summer of "I'm learning" because life seems to be a learning journey, not a learning arrival.

I'm learning this about life:

Life is so often what we make of it.

On one hand, my summer was a summer of bummers.

Bummers that
I did not pour the time into much that really needed my attention
I was seriously selfish and created some family tension
I felt lonely again yet did little to change it
I let some opportunities slip 

Life can so often be what we make of it, however.

What do we have in life if we refuse to make our focus on the One who made life?
What do we have in life if we refuse to receive grace, His grace?

He has grace for our selfishness, for our wasted moments, and for our outbursts of anger.

Truth is: He knows that we are going to fail, sees the frailness of our humanness, and yet has chosen to love us and call us His children, anyway.

In a culture born and raised on grace, we shouldn't lose sight of the power of it.

His grace is divine, coming from the Maker of the stars, the Author of the universe, the Lord above all lords.

His grace is this every time,
no matter how many times we fall into it.

So why not make that of life?

Make it full of falls into His grace, into His love, and into His truth instead of into our own confusion, condemnation, and anger?  

What did He make of life?

He made a way for us.
He made us new.
He redeemed His people.
He gave purpose.
He lavished with joy.
He infused with hope.

What are we, then, going to make of what He has made for us?

For we are no exception.  

Life for us, too, will so often be what we make of it.

So why not make it a time
to choose to see the good in situations and in people?
to choose to focus on the lessons we are learning instead of counting the mistakes we are making?
to fall into His grace and accept His love? 
to realize that He has given his life in the making of ours, and to live to make much of our time: to throw ourselves into delighting in our savior and following His lead in each moment.

Life for us, too, will so often be what we make of it.