“Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.” Psalm 90:12 NLT
“In business they say, ‘ Time is money’; in life, money is time!”
My thoughts today are about “rollover minutes.”
In any given day, you have only so much time; use it wisely and use it well. A prominent cellular company promotes their company’s service plan as having rollover minutes, which as you know means that any minutes not used in the billable month can be carried over to the next months. Real life is not like that; real life has no rollover minutes. Any minute wasted or not used purposefully is gone, unrecoverable and lost forever.
How many days and years God grants you may vary from one person to another, but everyone gets the same number of minutes and hours in their day; you can’t buy more or borrow extra. Really, when you think about it, it is not about how many minutes you have but about how well you use them and for what you trade them.
The author of What To Do Between Birth and Death: The Art of Growing Up writes, “You don’t really pay for things with money; you pay for them with time.” Have you ever thought about it that way? You only know the real cost of something by calculating how much time you traded out of your life in order to buy that. In business they say, “Time is money.” In life, money is time!
You spend a significant part of your life working for money in order to trade that for things you need or want. Some of those things are necessities, things you have to have. A few of those things are luxuries, things you want to have whether needed or not. I wonder if your purchases would change if you calculated how much of your life you were trading for that thing you thought you could not live without – things that will soon be broken, lost, or be replaced by a supposedly new and improved model.
I think I am pretty careful about how I spend money, but I realize that I am not always as careful about how I spend my time. Really, if I am not making the most of my time, I have failed real stewardship.
The Bible advises, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.” Psalm 90:12 NLT. Apparently, you are not growing in wisdom until you are successfully making the most of the time you have. See Matthew 6:19-21 NIV.
Maybe the first, and most important thing about using time wisely is investing in things eternal before temporal. Jesus told the story of two men whose lives touched. One enjoyed many things for which he had traded his time on earth until in eternity he found himself in torment wanting some comfort though none could be given him. The other had meager comforts in his lifetime, but somehow made the most of his time and was received into God’s presence upon his death. Read Luke 16:19-28 NIV. Which used time wisely? Your flesh is temporal; your soul is eternal!
There is a simple but haunting question Jesus asks, “What will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Mark 8:37 NKJV. You won’t get any rollover minutes. Use the ones you have wisely.
My prayer for you today is: rememberthis, time is brief then gone; eternity is forever.