We all know that monetarily we are supposed to be tithing (at least) one tenth of all that we have to God. But we also should be tithing our time as well. How much time do you spend in prayer and in the word each day? Ten percent of a twenty-four hour day is 2.4 hours. Now that may seem like quite a bit of time to set aside, but take a moment and look up the screen time on your phone.

If I were a betting [wo]man, I’d bet that you spend well over 2.4 hours per day wasting time scrolling through social media, talking to friends, and whatever else you may do on that little device. Now, okay, maybe you’re more disciplined than me and you don’t waste any time on your phone, but I’m sure you can come up with other things you do that aren’t the most productive use of your time.

Regardless of where we spend our time, we all are given the same amount of time each day and we are able to decide what we do with that time. Just as every breath we breathe is a gift from God, the time we have been given is something we should not take for granted. We are called to live a life for Christ and to give up our bodies as a living sacrifice.

Now if we wanted to get super technical about what we are supposed to be doing, we would see that we are supposed to be tithing 100% of our time to God because the entirety of a believer’s life should be lived for Christ. But if you want a tangible principle number to follow for dedicated time set apart to be with Christ, 2.4 hours is a beautiful goal.

You could split this up into 1 hour in the morning, 24 minutes on your lunch break, and another hour at the end of the day before bed. Maybe you have a 30 minute commute on the way to work, spend that time in prayer. Pray for opportunities to love others, pray that God will open your eyes to those around you, pray for the people in your life, pray for your bosses, pray for those who are hurting, pray for this broken world. You can also spend that time in praise and thanksgiving. There are so many practical little ways that you can redirect your life to focusing more fully on Christ.

You will never reach a point where you are doing enough. There will always be more that you can do. We can stack up more and more things to our to do list, but we will always fall short. If you don’t believe me, read through the Old Testament and look at the lives of the Israelites or look at the Pharisees in the NT. They try so hard to do all of the things, but they never can do enough. There is no way that you can do enough to make yourself right with God. Even if you do spend exactly 2.4 hours in prayer and praise, tithe 10% of your income, serve in the Church, make meals for the sicks, and whatever else you could do that is good in the eyes of the world, you will never be doing enough. You are not enough. You must recognize this to see your dire need for Christ.

Now that being said, do not throw in the towel and give up because it seems impossible. Christ offers us His strength and it is through Him that we are enough. We are enough because He reigns in us. He works through our weakness. With that knowledge, strive to give Him your all. Strive to spend that 2.4 hours each day in relationship with Him. He gave us everything in return for nothing. We should be striving to give Him all that we have.