This book is rich with insight and clarity, restoring a hopeful and life-affirming view of time that I had lost this year. It reminded me how little control I have over time, and that even if I did, it’s much wiser to leave it in the hands of the ultimate Timekeeper. I found the experience of reading it to be very grounding, and Michel’s openness about her own approach to managing time offered valuable insights into habits and patterns I’ve unknowingly developed.

Faithfulness is built on the ordinary things we do faithfully every day.

A reflection on time spent, earned, and wasted. We all look at things differently since covind and I think time is one of those. Time is very closely related to faith in how we respond to it. There are 8 Habits that help with how we spend that time to get the most out of faith.

The book is split on two parts. Anxiety and faith and with the last 3 years, we have to be honest and say anxiety was in everyone's life. Some deal better with anxiety and some think they are dealing with anxiety but where ever you fall into, the habits of faith and the gift of time, will give you a different perspective.

To be clear, this is not a self-help book on how to spend time. We have enough of those books, but a book to savor on the goodness of a life lived in faith. Enjoying the gift of time.

A special thank you to Baker Books and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review

For my entire adult life, I have been enamored with efficiency. Even now, when I should be older and wiser, my online bio describes me as an advocate for “the prudent use of little minutes.” A neat row of daily checkmarks is the reward for time well-managed, but In Good Time is Jen Pollock Michel’s well-constructed argument that time was never given to us to be managed.

How is it, then, that we can stay true to our American Protestant roots without allowing time to become “a lash held in the hands of some imperious master.” Set against the backdrop of her family’s COVID-19 lockdown, Michel’s journey is a movement from “time anxiety” to “time faith. Like Brother Lawrence, the believer is called to “do all things for the love of God”–regardless of the tallying of hours and days.

In keeping with her previous book (A Habit Called Faith), each chapter describes a habit for readers to bring to our relationship with time. With lyrical prose and biblical fidelity, Jen Pollock Michel writes from the vulnerable place of one who has failed and been forgiven or plowed her determined way to a finish line only to realize that God is more concerned with the slow work of forming wisdom in her heart.

I am coming away from In Good Time with a new appreciation for the goodness of time. I am encouraged to come to my daily do-list with “Why?” as my biggest question in place of my prevailing “How?” And I’ve been startled into awareness of all the ways I have made an idol of time. God has a way of toppling our false gods–in mercy, freeing us from their rule over us.

God, who lives outside of time, has given us the gift of hours and days, not so that we can fret over their passing, but so, like the children we are, we will have something to offer back to our Father in love.

Many thanks to Baker Publishers and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.

I needed this book in this season.

Society hurries and scurries and insists that time is money, production is everything, and consumerism is king. Michel pushes back the conversation and explores leaning into time through a personal lens, illustrating with oodles of personal antidotes the heart and practice of time well-lived.

A light read that is well-written. Almost a collection of essays.

Jen Pollock Michel does a great job showing the Christian perspective of time management and how it differs from what time management gurus tell us to do. A great read perfect for the new year.

I highly recommend this book. Jen Pollack Michel encourages her readers to disentangle their hearts from modern assumptions about time (obsession with productivity and time management for example), and instead, wrestle with timeless truths about the Author of time, She shares 8 life giving rhythms or habits to reorient our lives to a God honoring view of time. .

In Good Time
8 Habits for Reimagining Productivity, Resisting Hurry, and Practicing Peace
by Jen Pollock Michel
Pub Date 13 Dec 2022
Baker Books
Christian


I am reviewing a copy of In Good Time through Baker Books and Netgalley:


In Good Time reminds us that time does not belong to us, Time in fact belongs to God.


In this book you will be made to question whether productivity is the only only grid for a good life! Have you ever imagined a life without hurry, relentless work, multitasking, or scarcity? A life that is characterized instead by presence, attention, rest, rootedness, fruitfulness, and generosity?


No matter if you are find time, manage it or save it, In Good Times offers tips and habits to help you.


I give In Good Time five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

This book is not what I expected. There is nothing wrong with it, other than it's just not my style of reading. This book reminds me more of like a research paper. There are a lot of quotes from various resources in the book, which is fine, but I would have rather read more about what the author's views were on each of these resources with the resources credited in the footnotes.

Overall, the book is Biblically based, and thoroughly researched. Just not the type of book I enjoy reading.