Have you ever thought about the value of your time?
Somehow—and I’m not sure how it happened—the years zoomed by, and I went straight from being a young bride to becoming a grandmother. It felt like those pages on the calendar whipped by like an expert shuffling a deck of cards at warp speed.
That’s led me to realize something important: Time is one of our most precious commodities.
It’s like each of us has a bank account of days, hours, minutes and seconds to spend instead of dollars and coins. On the day we were born, God deposited the moments of our lives into that account—and we get to choose how we spend them.
Those moments can’t be replaced. They can’t be done over. And there’s no guarantee about how many days and hours were deposited into our time accounts.
Each moment is a precious gift from God. And that’s the question for us: Are we spending those priceless days and hours wisely? The letters of “TIME” provide a great reminder of ways that we can use that gift to accomplish God’s plan for us:
T = Talents
Are we using the talents He gave us or are they going to waste? I love what Erma Bombeck said, “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything You gave me.’” Like Erma, I want to use the time God gave me to accomplish the tasks He has for me to do.
I = Impact
Are we using God’s gift of time to impact the lives of others? All of us can volunteer at church or our child’s school, do yard work for an elderly neighbor, encourage a single parent or help a disadvantaged child learn to read. And if we don’t do it, who will?
M = My Loved Ones
Are we spending all of our time at work or other pursuits, or are we investing our lives and love into our family and friends? Those are irreplaceable moments. I’ve heard of many deathbed situations where people wish they’d spent more time with their families, but I’ve never heard of anyone wishing they’d taken more time at work. Do our loved ones know how much we value them? Sometimes “love” truly is spelled t-i-m-e.
E = Eternity
Are we using our time for what will matter for eternity? Many folks spend their lives accumulating “things,” but we can’t take them with us when heaven beckons. Those things that we do for God–sharing our faith, teaching our children about Him, being extensions of God’s hands to others through kindness and love–that’s what will live on in others.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)
Manage your time better with the 2016 Daily Guideposts Planner! Buy one here.
