Choices and the Tyranny of the Urgent
Over the last weeks we have spent some of our precious “time” thinking and talking about “time.”
Thinking and talking about time is helpful as we wrestle with our perspective about how time affects us.
I have to admit that over my adulthood I have often felt as though time was running against me, it didn’t
feel like a resource God had given me at all. Usually, getting to the end of my ability to be pushed by
time I got frustrated and began to push back. Instead of thoughtfully pulling back from a few things I
wanted to drop everything. Instead of carefully thinking through my commitments and responses and
saying “no” to some things so I could say “yes” to the best I wanted to say “no” to everything. To get off
what felt like a hamster wheel holding me captive.
“We live in constant tension between the urgent and the important. The problem is that many important
tasks need not be done today, or even this week. Extra hours of prayer and Bible study, a visit to an
elderly friend, reading an important book: these activities can usually wait a while longer. But often
urgent, less important, tasks call for immediate response – endless demands pressure every waking
hour.” Charles E. Hummel, Tyranny of the Urgent
I wonder if you to have felt that way at times. We have a choice, we have choices. Staying on the
hamster wheel is a choice, so is getting off. Living in the urgent at the expense of what is really
important to us also makes space for some choice. Getting off, preserving the important is a choice to
change something. Some definitions of the word “change” are to transform or convert; to exchange for
something else; to make something different from what it was or what it would be if left alone.
I have this quirky little habit that pops up when the urgent, hamster running, everything is chaos gets
built up to an impossible frenzy. Right at the peak of the greatest tension for myself and others (usually
my family) I begin to laugh, to chuckle – mostly at the absurdity, the way our (my) human nature
responds to the chaotic. Talk about doing something different! I am not encouraging you to follow my
spontaneous response but when it happens, things sure change. Usually, calm follows, others relax a
bit, and we say a few funny things about the stuff that just a minute ago was creating so much anxt and
energy. Then we regroup and begin to problem solve, make changes, address the urgent and preserve
as much as possible the important in the situation or our lives.
Perhaps a better, more proactive way to change our response to the tyranny of the urgent comes from
these areas are to do the following:
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“Decide what’s important and plan to give them proper priority during a day or a week or a
month. God has given us different abilities, amounts of energy, opportunities, assignments and
personal needs. So each of us should consider the basic components of a productive Christian life
and prayerfully set some specific goals.
Discover where your time goes. Your pattern of spending time is a picture of your present
lifestyle with its needs, values and desires. Any adjustments – some of which can be painful must
begin with this reality.
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Budget the hours. You are ready to make some changes but don’t try to reorganize your life on
paper and then hope to live the new schedule immediately. Start with the way you are using the
hours now and plan only a few changes as they become possible for you.
Follow through. At the outset of the day recommit yourself to the Lord as you think of the hours
to follow. Be ready as the day’s battle against the clock begins. Sometimes if you withstand the
urgency of the moment, you can weigh the cost and discern whether the task is God’s will for
you.
Evaluate. Christians who are too busy to stop, take spiritual inventory and receive their
assignments from God become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent.
Continue the effort. There are two opposite ways to use our time. One person goes through the
day responding mainly to inner compulsions and outward pressures of the moment. Another has
a plan that sets priorities and prayerfully makes decisions in advance. Most of us live
somewhere between these two extremes. But no matter where we are on the scale, progress is
possible.”
Charles E. Hummel, Tyranny of the Urgent
If you are feeling that part of the reason that you haven’t moved toward the dream future that God has
given you, or you believe that you do not have the time to make some important change, remember
that you have a choice. Perhaps asking these two questions will provide some energy to get moving on
the important.
What if you chose not to act on what is important to you? What would life be like if nothing was
different in a year?
What would your life be like if you did?
May you be richly blessed by any action you are able to take!