This is a post I planned to write 6 years ago. In fact, it began life as a talk I was invited to give to the 20s group at our church when I was 33. But a change in circumstances meant I never got around to arranging a date to do the talk. So this has been percolating in my head ever since.
I’ve kept the title the same but really, what I am hoping to share here are some thoughts that I hope and pray will help those still in their twenties consider how they use their time. Firstly, I should say that I am no expert, in fact I made many mistakes in how I approached life as a young man and it is what I learned, that I include here.
I highly recommend this book by J.C. Ryle. Thoughts for Young Men. This really is an excellent little book – and at 78 pages it isn’t that long but is packed with helpful wisdom and insights.
Entering my 20s
As I entered my 20s, I think I was fairly typical of many my age graduating from University, though with one exception which I will mention later. My degree did not train me for the busyness and intensity of working life. I had no idea how to manage money, no idea how to manage my time and no idea how I hoped to use the life and resources that God had gifted to me. The exception for me was that most of the people I knew graduated with a job or further study lined up. Many of them were graduate training posts for careers such as accountancy or law. I graduated with no job lined up so I ended up temping to pay the bills for a couple of years. This was followed by a two year ministry training course at my church.
Regrets from my first adult decade
If I’m honest, in principle I believe that having regrets, at least of the kind I’m thinking about here, doesn’t sit very well with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. God’s plan is good and perfect and so in that sense, I don’t have regrets. However, I did learn things during the decade and they were important lessons. The main things I would highlight would be having no idea how to manage my personal finances or my time. This meant that many years went by when things like sacrificial giving in support of gospel ministry just were not on my radar at all. Budgeting and saving also didn’t register until I was in my later 20s. Whilst I didn’t get into any debt during this time, my money management was poor. It also meant that in reality, as I look back, I consider a lot of time was wasted on numerous things like sleeping in, watching TV and playing video games. With the growth of streaming services and Youtube, I suspect this is an even bigger problem for those in their 20s today. I had an idea of some of the basic habits that I wanted to adopt in life, like reading the Bible and praying every day, but many other basic habits and practices like healthy eating, exercise, reading etc again were not things I gave enough time to.
Joys of the decade
There are so many blessing afforded to us at this age and stage of life. It’s often said that people fresh out of Uni, no spouse and no kids, have more time than everyone else does. Let me state categorically that this idea is wrong. It is a total lie. You do not have more or less time at any point in life. Everyone has the same amount of time. What you have is more or less constraints and influences on how you use it. What you are likely to have when younger (though not always) is a great deal more flexibility day to day and week to week. This is because there will be less commitments and less responsibilities at home on the one hand, and also because things are just easier to do on the other. There’s a hilarious Michael Macintyre bit where he illustrates this by the difference in what is required to ‘leave the house’ if you have kids, to what is required if you don’t. Summarised by the line “things that I did not even consider to be things…are now practically impossible”.
It is also true that in this decade there are generally speaking more opportunities for you. This is true both of having more opportunities ahead of you in life as life takes shape, but also day to day. Because, it is generally simpler to do things, there are just more options for what you can do on any given day. It becomes easier to say ‘yes’ to things.
And, crucially, these things will also be largely true of your peer group around you, meaning that your 20s is a great time to build lasting and deep friendships relatively quickly.
What advice would I give to my 21 year old self?
As I look back, I would advise my 21 year old self to first and foremost consider the purpose of their time. And then to plan, organise and manage their time proactively in accordance with that purpose. But, I would advise caution. The flexibility is a blessing and I would not recommend taking on so many commitments that this flexibility is killed. You might think that this is unloving. I can tell you that having flexibility is actually the opposite as it means that you are free to serve others at short notice which is a major blessing to be able to offer to your church family and anyone else.
If I were given the opportunity to pass on wisdom to myself 18 years ago, here is what I would say:
Use of Time
Firstly, I would want to consider my service. Specifically who and what I was serving. I was afforded many opportunities to serve others in my local church. I would encourage myself to make the most of these opportunities as far as I could.
Secondly, I would encourage myself towards consistency. Too much of the time my days were wildly inconsistent, especially with regard to when I got up and when I went to bed.
Too often I followed the easy path of least resistance in terms of what I did with any time I had spare. I would advise against forming this habit.
Lastly, I would want to consider my leisure and down time more carefully. This links to the point above of not taking the path of least resistance. There are many different ways to rest the body and the mind. Some are more healthy than others. I would encourage myself to consider this much more carefully.
Use of Money
I would want to learn how to manage my finances well. Especially with regard to planning, building and maintaining a budget. This would have been a great help to me. I would also want to consider generosity and sacrificial giving to support gospel ministry at a much younger age. Partly this is a financial godliness discipline but it is also aimed at building a desire to partner proactively with mission and ministry locally and around the world.
In short, I would want to grow in applying the principles of godliness to my wallet.
Godliness
This area is a harder one to explain and if you are reading this in your 20s I would strongly advise chatting this through with an older Christian. The two big dangers would be complacency and legalism. The battle against sin is a lifelong one and it is to be fought with the grace of God. The danger with complacency is that as we fail to experience any consequences of our sinful patterns, behaviour and thinking, we fail to recognise the danger and so we become complacent towards our sin. The second danger is that our approach to godliness become reductionistic and therefore legalistic. I have lost count of the number of conversations I have had whilst leading small groups of people in their 20s that are exclusively concerned with ‘quiet times’, evangelism and other common issues. There is a danger of reducing our view of godliness down to a short list of things we are seeking to do and a similar list of things we seek to avoid. Once we have nailed those issues – we are godly.
I would want to consider this area much more carefully and seek wisdom from those older than me. I still do.
I would also encourage myself to consider relational godliness. As I reflect, there are many things we say, think and do that are not sinful. When you bring them into contact with other people, they become so. To give an example, when I lived alone there was nothing inherently sinful or wrong with leaving washing up undone for several days, leaving laundry undone or going to bed at 2am. Now I have a family, these things are unloving. So, I would encourage myself to consider ways, in the circumstances I found myself in at the time (NOT in some form of ‘preparation’ for a future that was uncertain but that I hoped for), to serve and love others sacrificially. To be proactive in addressing the inherent selfishness that resides in every human heart.
People & Relationships
I would encourage myself to use the time to focus on building friendships that last.
Reading & Study
Reading and study of the Bible and theology is something that I would have given a great deal more time to. There are so many good books out there that I have yet to read. I would not for a minute advocate that every single minute of every single day needed to be used productively in some way or another, but I cannot help but feel that the benefits of using several hours each week to understand the Bible and to read deeply would have served me far better in the long run than my Fifa skills have (which before anyone asks proved highly deficient against my much younger godson and so now there are two reasons this time was not well spent).
In addition to this type of reading and study. I would have used the time to read/study more widely and develop skills that I do not have.
Habits to form
The way in which much of this would cash out for me, would be in an effort to form habits in these years that would serve us well into later life. In particular I would build the habits of:
- Giving
- Bible Reading
- Prayer
- Exercise
- Self discipline with money, food & time
I give God great thanks for this time and I trust Him and I trust His plan. I do not believe that this time was wasted for me. And, I believe that in all of the areas that I have mentioned, attention will be required for the whole of life. It’s not a simple case of ‘nailing’ it in our 20s and then these things never being a battle ever again.
So, if you are in your 20s, I invite you to consider these things. If you are in your 30s, I invite you to continue considering these things and if you are in your 40s and beyond, I invite you to continue considering these things and tell me what you think I should be considering as I move into those decades.
