In Good Time Paperback – December 13, 2022

Time. We are all in it, and often, like fish in their waters, we swim along, oblivious to its reality. On occassion we are jarred, like when we look in the mirror and see that time has been working on us all the while, indifferent to our detachment.Time management is the other side of the same coin; its the closet industry of the Typa As, the go-getters and the highly productive. Constantly aware of the ticking clock, many obsess over its passage and fret over what they are filling the hours with. Am I wasting time?Jen Pollock Michel identifies as part of that tribe. A self-professed consumer of time management books, Michel has not added her contribution to that canon, rather, this is a gospel saturated reflection on what we do with this water in which we swim, or more precisely, how God uses the pool he has placed us in. This is an invitation into God's time, into His timing of our lives. As she puts it: “This book involves unlearning: about time as instrument, about time as material aspiration. … It will invite each of us into a different imagining of time, … where God’s will is being done without delay or haste. In this world, rather indifferent to the urgent ticking of the clock, we are free to be still (and) take refuge in the one who was and us and ever will be God.” (53)Born out of the quandary of the 2020 quarantine (what will we do with all this time?) Michel has written a very personal piece that is woven together with the threads taken from her COVID journals, biblical commentary, literature and anecdotes of how she, her family and friends tried to make sense of the new normal that was life during that odd time.Michel is a gifted and beautiful writer. Her prose is smooth, it moves like a river unimpeded by the boulders of disruptive ideas or organization. The book starts with her take on the concept of time, and then quickly moves on to the ultimate purpose of the book which is to offer the reader some well worn, but newly stated ideas on how to "manage" time. There's nothing novel, per se, in what she offers here, but it's fresh and purposeful and one can't help but come away intrigued by her musings.But here's the main thing: The attempt at management is really only an acknoweldgement that time is on loan, its borrowed, we do not own it. Her chapter in which she faces down the impending death of a friend and the shock that she too might be headed down the same cancerous path is a beautiful chapter in all of its dire and ugly telling. It drives the point home: We are all going to die. Given that harsh reality is "the sword of damacles" hanging over our heads, time becomes more treasured, and while "managing" it sounds a bit too scientific for these pages, wisely using the time we are granted is the point.From the book's cover to its final pages, the theme of her thoughts on time are nailed to the metaphor of trees, these beautiful, stately products of time. The reader, she presumes, is wanting to grow. To grow into wisdom, to grow into Christ, to put down roots into the soil of the gospel. It is a word picture that works. Anyone who has planted a sapling from a 15-gallon bucket knows that sitting under its splendorous shade cast by majestic and soaring branches is decades away. In good time that day will come, but for now we water, we tend and we wait.Michel has added another fine work to her small library of similarly penned reflections on life lived in the shadow of the cross, at the foot of the One who died upon a tree in order to give us life.

This book arrived in my life at a very good time, which is to also say: "now." Full of wisdom, insight, bracing baths of sober reality, and an even deeper current of grace and hope.Additionally, I took advantage of a pre-order bonus offered by the author and participated in a webinar workshop. That material is centered around developing a personal rule of life. I highly commend that resource to readers of this book. (Check her website for further details.) That workshop was excellent to pair with the book, which features valuable research, evocative stories, and grounding philosophies. The workshop attends to more of the practical, "nuts and bolts" elements of her approach.

Fabulous... life changing for me! Time anxiety??? This Christian book is for you for sure!

Wow, I had high hopes for this book, but I couldn’t get further than 65 pages. I found it rambling and like reading someone’s personal journal with no clearly defined goal of ever reaching a point. I could go on about the MANY other issues with this book, but trust me and don’t waste your money. I’m regretting that I spent $16 on this as well as my precious, priceless, irretrievable time….

Excellent book for Christian adults of all ages. Will change your perspective on your time. I want to read again to really absorb.

This is not your traditional time mgmt/help book. Pollock Michael groups ideas about time mgmt and shares her personal stories with many other author quotes throughout.It is a challenging read in that so much of it is unexpected and original thinking, NOT what I tend to call many Christian living books these days: “Christian-lite”. There are numerous thoughtful phrases, sentences and paragraphs to chew on. I can definitely see benefiting from a 2nd or even 3rd reading.Well done!

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.” 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.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.

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.