What does it mean to “redeem the time” if you are serving Christ?

Most Christians are familiar with the passage where the notion of “redeeming the time” is found: ”Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is” (Ephesians 5:15–16).

Now, more than ever, we need to make the most of our time if we are living for Christ. Christian writers are no different; we need to be diligent as we write articles and books that will bring salt and light to our sin-weary world.

But it’s not easy. Christian writers are just as likely to engage in cyberloafing as anyone else.

Cyberloafing Explained

What is cyberloafing? You may not have heard the term before, but you have done it.

It’s when you’re working away in a high productivity mode, and suddenly a demon within you says, “It’s time to check Facebook.”

You lose all motivational momentum as you stop to satisfy your irrational desire to see what’s happening on Facebook, check prices on something you want to buy, watch cat videos, or otherwise take a mental vacation from the task at hand.

This is a serious problem that has been happening a long time and is getting worse. According to a 2016 article in the Wall Street Journal, some studies show businesses in the US lose as much as $85 billion each year due to this kind of employee cyberloafing. The loss may be far greater if you are writing for the Lord because souls are at stake.

Why Cyberloafing is Costly to Christians

Why is cyberloafing such a threat to you as a Christian writer?

Writing requires devotion. Most Christian writers feel they connect with the Lord as they write. You break it when you succumb to thoughts that take you away from the ideas he is giving you. It’s an undisciplined act that becomes nothing more than a bad habit if you allow it.

It’s much like Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of stew (Genesis 25:29–34). Christian writers are trading their creative flow for the emotional jolt they get from checking their Facebook page.

This is not to say you shouldn’t have breaks. However, to keep your focus, you should schedule them. A break for reflection or prayer is desirable. Even a snack or exercise break is good. But you never want to abandon your work on a whim.

Cyberloafing is a Spiritual Issue

Your time is valuable, and cyberloafing squanders it. You want to be concerned about this as a Christian writer. If you’re wise, you have writing word count goals, but you can’t meet them if you succumb to cyberloafing.

In a study, Professor Maria Triana of the University of Wisconsin Business School determined that cyberloafers spent as much as 2.5 hours each day away from their work. Even if you only type 30 words each minute, that means you’ll write 4,500 fewer words that day, and 22,500 fewer words during the workweek.

Lost time builds up when you are gone cyberloafing for just 10–15 minutes at a time. But as most of us know, cyberloafing can easily turn into chronotaraxis, which is the distortion or confusion of time. We take a minute to check the price of an item at Amazon.com, for example, and the first thing we know, we are also comparing prices and reading reviews. We lose an hour or more when we intended to leave our work for only a few minutes.

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

You may say, “It’s my time, I’ll waste it if I want.” But is that true for a Christian writer? No, not if we acknowledge we are bond-servants to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:22) and understand what that implies. Hymn writer Isaac Watts understood and penned these words: “Dear God, let all my hours be thine.”

How You Can Redeem Your Writing Time

Most writers are researching the internet, so that’s like working in a dynamite factory. We want to make dynamite, but we don’t want it to blow up in our hands. In either case, it’s easy to get distracted, and that’s when something bad happens.

That’s one reason I have long advocated for doing book research independently of writing. Get all your research done before you start writing. You don’t need the distractions that come with simultaneously researching and writing.

If you discover missing some fact after you are in the writing phase, put a marker at that point in your writing, then fill in the blanks in your revision.

The second thing a person can do is more general. If you have self-control issues, you can put a site blocker on your Internet web browser. For example, if you use the Chrome browser, you can go to the Chrome Google web store and choose from the many available site blockers.

They block the sites you are tempted to use. You select them. Most are time-triggered, so you can block Facebook for four hours, for example. If you’re wise, you’ll set it to eliminate temptation during the entire work period you have set aside, whatever that time may be.

The idea of a Christian cyberloafer is in direct conflict with the calling of a Christian writer. We must redeem the time God has given us by working efficiently.