Time

I believe that God has given me the gift of cynicism. Dictionary.com, that great repository of intelectual data, says this by way of definition:

1. An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others: the public cynicism aroused by governmental scandals.
2. A scornfully or jadedly negative comment or act: "She arrived at a philosophy of her own, all made up of her private notations and cynicisms" (Henry James).

I was at a meeting today that only served to notch up my cynicism a bit more, and a well-intentioned friend, who was himself feeling a bit cynical, said that cynicism could not be a spiritual gift. The spiritual gift, according to my friend, is discernment, and cynicism is what happens when that discernment is perverted in a negative way.

Perhaps....

One of the areas I become most cynical (see definition #1 above) is when I feel like my time is being wasted. Time is such a precious commodity, and it's one I will gladly give to those things I am passionate about (like the people I serve and love so much). But when I find that time is being taken away from me to be given to things I don't believe in or don't care much about well, then, I shift into cynical mode.

Because of this I try to be very sensitive to the time of individuals in the church where I serve. And so I am constantly asking, what is a reasonable amount of time to expect individuals to commit to the building of the Kingdom? On the one hand, I realize that all of our time is to be sacred/holy/Kingdom time, but being the pragmatic midwestern American that I am I cannot help but try to find a number to assign a value as a solution to this equation.

What do you think? How much of a commitment should we expect of ourselves? And what kind of activities count in that time? I really would like to know....