The way we use our days reveals what we value most. Time is the one resource that cannot be earned back, saved up, or replaced. Once it’s spent, it’s gone. Culture treats time as something to fill. Scripture treats it as something to steward.

Stewarding your time isn’t about productivity. It’s about purpose. It’s about living with enough intentionality that your days actually reflect what you believe.

Every Season Has a Name

We’re starting in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance… a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”

Solomon isn’t describing a schedule here. He’s describing reality. Life comes in seasons, and not all seasons look the same. The wisdom here isn’t about controlling time. It’s about recognizing what time it is and responding accordingly.

Every season has purpose. Even the hard ones. Mourning, tearing down, silence – these are named and given their place. Spiritual maturity involves learning to discern your season and live faithfully inside it, rather than fighting it or rushing past it.

Understanding that time is something to be stewarded was genuinely life-changing for me. It didn’t just help me manage my calendar better. It shifted my entire mindset around time and what God has called me to do with it.

The Brevity of Time

Psalm 90:12:

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

Moses’s prayer here isn’t anxious. It’s wise. He’s asking God to help him see his days clearly so he can live them well. Numbering your days isn’t morbid. It’s clarifying. It’s understanding that we have a limited amount of time and God has called us to steward it well.

James 4:13-14:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such-and-such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

James warns against the assumption that time is ours to spend however we like. Life is brief and contingent. Acknowledging that isn’t pessimism. It’s humility.

Ecclesiastes 3:11:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

Each Season is Beautiful

God has made each season beautiful in his time, but he’s also placed eternity in our hearts. We feel the weight of time precisely because we were made for something beyond it. Most people don’t waste time out of laziness. They waste it out of a failure to reckon honestly with how much they actually have.

And here’s something I’m still learning: urgency and peace are not opposites. You can hold both when your time is anchored to God’s purposes. As someone who loves to hustle but is always overwhelmed by it, learning how to move with urgency while also resting in the peace that God has it, that changes everything. You plan, you move, and then if God changes it, you let him. That posture will shift your whole relationship with time.

Questions to sit with:

• Do I live as though time is unlimited, or do I treat each day as the gift it actually is?
• What would change about how I spend my time if I truly believed it was finite and sacred?

Time Management Is a Spiritual Discipline

Ephesians 5:15-16:

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Paul’s language here is urgent. He’s not giving a productivity tip. He’s calling believers to wake up. The world around us is pulling in one direction. Wisdom is the counter movement.

Colossians 4:5:

“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.”

That phrase, making the best use of the time, in the Greek carries the idea of buying back or redeeming. Time isn’t just managed. It can be reclaimed from whatever would otherwise consume it.

Proverbs 16:9:

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

This verse keeps planning humble. We plan wisely, and then we hold our schedules with open hands. We have a schedule, we have a plan, and then we say, all right, God, it’s yours. Change it if you want to. That’s what stewarding time actually looks like.

Spend your Time

How you spend your hours is a spiritual statement about what you believe matters. Busyness is not the same as faithfulness. I wish I understood this sooner. A full calendar is not evidence of a well-stewarded life.

I love being busy. I love go, go, go. And I’m currently in a season where I physically can’t, where my health has deteriorated and I’m more burnt out than I’ve ever been. And what I’m realizing is that God isn’t telling me I can’t have a full life. He’s telling me to keep the main thing the main thing. Wisdom with time includes saying no, not out of selfishness, but out of clarity about what this season is actually for.

Questions to sit with:

• Does my daily schedule reflect my stated values, or does it reflect something else entirely?
• Where am I spending time that isn’t aligned with the season God has me in right now?

Discerning Your Season

Ecclesiastes 3:1:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Not every season is a season of harvest. Some are seasons of planting, waiting, or being pruned. Misreading your season leads to frustration. You push for fruit when God is still working on the soil.

Romans 8:28:

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

God’s Working it for Good

Romans 8:28 is not a promise that every season will feel good. It’s a promise that every season is being worked toward good by a God who doesn’t waste anything. Your good doesn’t always mean comfortable or that you’ll like it. Your good doesn’t always mean it matches your definition of good. But it does mean God is working it, and even when a season is hard and it sucks, we can trust he’s going to pull us through.

Galatians 6:9:

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Galatians 6:9 addresses the specific temptation of seasons that feel slow or unproductive. The harvest is coming, but only for those who don’t give up before it arrives.

Discerning your season is a spiritual discipline. It requires paying attention to what God is actually doing in and around you. Seasons of rest and preparation are not wasted time. They are investment time. Fighting the season you’re in instead of living faithfully within it is one of the most common ways time gets wasted spiritually.

Questions to sit with:

• What season do you believe you’re in right now? Growth, rest, preparation, or harvest?
• Are you resisting this season, or are you receiving what God is doing in it?

Redeeming Wasted Time

Joel 2:25:

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.”

I’m not going to pretend I got through this verse without crying when I recorded this episode, because I didn’t. I recently received a word from the Lord that he’s restoring my years, and reading Joel 2:25 out loud felt like confirmation of that.

God says he can restore what the locusts have eaten. Not just comfort you about lost years, but actually redeem them. That’s the character of God toward time that was squandered through sin, distraction, or pain. I suffered abuse at the hands of multiple people through my childhood. There are whole parts of my story that are dark and parts of it I don’t even fully remember. And knowing that God is going to come through and redeem that time, I don’t know what that looks like, but he said it. And he’s brought me through way too much for me to doubt him now.

Philippians 3:13-14:

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s posture here isn’t one of regret over the past or anxiety about the future. He’s singularly focused on what is ahead. Redeeming time starts with releasing what can’t be changed.

Ephesians 5:16:

“Making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

The response to wasted time is not guilt. It is recalibration. Guilt over wasted time can itself become a way of continuing to waste it. The gospel frees us to move forward. Redeeming wasted time isn’t about compensating for the past. It’s about choosing differently, starting today. Purpose is the antidote to drift. When you know what this season is for, you stop letting it slip away.

Questions to sit with:

• Is there a season of wasted or lost time that you’re still carrying as guilt rather than releasing to God?
• What is one specific, purpose-driven commitment you can make to steward this season well?

A Prayer to Close

Lord, thank You for this time in Your Word. I pray for restoration, not only for me but for everyone reading this. Restore the years the locusts have eaten. Heal the trauma. Restore childhoods and families. Help us to see our days clearly and live with intention. Give us the courage to discern the season we’re in and not fight it but learn from it. Release us from guilt over wasted time, and give us faith to move forward. Give us a renewed sense of purpose that shapes how we spend our hours. Thank You for all You’ve done, all You’re doing, and all You will do. In Jesus’ name, amen.

If you want to do this work in community with other women who are also figuring it out, come join us in the STWRD Collective. This is where we steward our lives better together, in every season, even the hard ones. I’d love to have you in there.

Find me on Instagram at @karleighwalkswithjesus or reach out at karleighwalkswithjesus@gmail.com.

I love you. God loves you. Number your days.