My Time Matters
Yesterday I had an hour before leaving for an appointment. What should I do? I wondered. As I considered several options, I remembered the dinner guests coming in a few days who do not know Jesus. This thought occurred to me: How I spend this small amount of time might affect how another spends all eternity. With that thought in my mind nothing seemed to be more important than prayer.
The day after the two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the editor of Adventure Cyclist magazine said, "I kept trying to do my work, but what I was trying to do didn't seem very important."
A sports fan commented after the terrorist attack that when his favorite ball team played miserably it really wasn't that big of a deal. A thousand years from now it simply would not matter.
In his book Measure Your Life, Wesley Duewel discusses the importance of spending our time for what will matter. He states that for each day we spend on earth, there will be billions and billions and billions of future years in which we'll reap what we sow. Every second of every day will be of tremendous significance in eternity.
Paul says we are to fix our eyes on the eternal. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). Events such as a terrorist attack provide a sobering glimpse of the eternal, but what would it mean to live with our eyes fixed on the unseen?
"I want to hold the things of this world loosely," was one of my dad's sayings when I was growing up. To do that, we live, perhaps unconsciously, making our choices on the basis of this question: "In eternity's light, what will have seemed important?"
Thank You, Jesus, for allowing me glimpses of what You value. Give me discernment and desire to use my time in ways that I will never regret--especially when I stand before You.
"Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." (Ephesians 5:15-17).
