Why is it that when many of us give up an activity to lighten our schedule we end up replacing that activity with something new? Some of us are people pleasers. Others think we’re the only ones who can do it. Some just want to help out or simply just can’t resist the activity. On my break, when I was supposed to be completing a new writing project I discovered that I was tempted to replace my blogging time with something else. When I wanted to read a book or watch a movie, I reasoned: “Well, I write my blog in the morning and I don’t have to complete the devotionals in the morning.” I also took phone calls when I was supposed to be resting. I only slipped a couple of times, but I had to ask myself, “What was that all about?” I realized that I didn’t value my time.

Value—the appropriate cost, weight, importance or significance you assign to something

If I had placed a high value on my time, I would definitely be less likely to waste it. And when we don’t value our time what we are really saying is that we don’t value the activity we should be engaging in or even the results we would get from engaging in the activity. So I wasn’t valuing writing devotionals for Guideposts, a company whose brand reaches some 7 million people, and the opportunities writing for this group will afford me. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Karen Hunter says this is just niggardly.

Before you get all up in arms, first, Hunter is black, and second, niggardly is not the same as nigger (though some might argue differently). Niggardly—adjective, not generous: very reluctant to give or spend anything; small or inadequate in quantity; adverb, in a stingy way, miserly. Third, Hunter’s book Stop Being Niggardly and Nine Other Things Black People Need to Stop Doing* challenges black folks’ thinking and behavior that keeps them from achieving, a self-help book that is always in order. Being niggardly with our time was on Hunter’s list. But before I read her book I had discovered this about myself. I read her book right after my blogging break in July, a perfect time to reinforce what God had shown me about myself so I wouldn’t slip into being niggardly.

What about you? What have you been niggardly about, not given enough value to? What has being niggardly cost you?

*Get Stop Being Niggardly and see why I think it is well-written, has clarity of thought, is sometimes entertaining and always captivating.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith