Tick-Tock

As I head ever-closer to eternity, I often find myself contemplating time. I think about how little time I may have left to use the spiritual gifts God has so graciously given me to use for His glory. (Not that He necessarily needs me, mind you. He's quite capable of raising up another to take my place!)  My grandchildren are growing up quickly and I realize how little time I may have to build memories, to interact with them and shine God's truth into their lives. I think of those I teach... the bi-weekly women's Bible study, my 5th/6th Sunday School class, the women I do one-on-one studies with, and my driving desire to transmit to them all the necessary "how-to's" for studying God's Word for themselves, that they may personally know Jesus Christ at an ever-increasing, life-changing depth. The passing of time also leads me to consider how much of it I waste in useless, worthless pursuits. I recall my daughter pointing out once how we all have the same amount of hours in a day. It's how we choose to use them that makes the difference.

Kevin DeYoung (The Gospel Coalition) recently posted a quote from Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done. Though not a Christian book, Drucker does offer useful considerations about time applicable to all of us. He writes...

The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it and no marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever and will never come back. Time is, therefore, always in exceedingly short supply.

Time is totally irreplaceable. Within limits we can substitute one resource for another, copper for aluminum, for instance. We can substitute capital for human labor. We can use more knowledge or more brawn. But there is no substitute for time.

Everything requires time. It is the one truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes an effective executive as much as their tender loving care of time.

You may not be as old as me. You may think you have all the time in the world ahead of you. You need to realize that age may have absolutely nothing to do with the amount of time you'll spend here. None of us knows which day will be our last! That should lead us to carefully consider our own use of this commodity called time. Don't allow yourself to get caught up with the notion that "someday when I have more time I'll study God's Word  ... someday when I have more time I'll live for Christ ... someday when I have more time I'll get serious about prayer ... someday when I have more time I'll tell others the good news of the gospel". Your "some day" might not arrive.

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. [James 4:13-14]