Time's Value
When speaking or writing about "TIME" in the biblical sense the New and Old Testaments contain almost 1,100 references to time. Ecclesiastes 3 is an excellent, nearly all-inclusive, place to begin. Here are those verses are as written in the New King James Version.
Everything Has Its Time
To everything, there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to break down, And a time to build up;
A time to weep, And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain, And a time to lose;
A time to keep, And a time to throw away;
A time to tear, And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
A time to love, And a time to hate;
A time of war, And a time of peace.
The Apostle Paul was never one to let challenging times or difficult circumstances control him. Rather, with the help of God, he was always determined to utilize his days and years working for the Lord. He helped others gain, or win if you will, the cross of salvation. Have you?
We read of his attitude, enduring dedication, and resolute determination from the words found in Philippians 3:12-14. “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF OUR TIME
Want to know the value of a particular year? Ask a soldier, man or woman, sent overseas to endure a hardship tour, IE., no accompanying spouse, or children. What is the value of one single month? Ask a mother, on the wrong side of the glass, watching the nurse attending to her premature baby. What is the value of one week? Remember the last time you were broke, and it was days until payday. Any week with sparse food was a long week.
What is the value of one hour? Ask someone terminally ill waiting for their spouse to arrive at the hospital. What is one minute's value? Ask the spouse who barely missed being able to say “goodbye” to their loved one who just died. What is the value of a split second? Ask anyone who recently swerved to avoid a child darting out between two cars. Most importantly though—is how do you value your time?
Of course, we know that time is purely a human concept. Since we can't touch it or hold it, do we humans spend too much time measuring time only to feel the aging effects of time's passing. God doesn’t have a desk clock or use a calendar. Most of us know the famous Bible quote that says, “With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8) God deals with eternity, and therefore time is not an important factor to Him. We have an eternity to face head-on. So, should our time left be important to us? What do you think? How will you use it?
Our time is crucial because we live a limited allotment of time left here on earth. Some more, some less. Life begins in a mother's womb and, by God's grace we were born. The lucky ones grow into adolescence, mature to adulthood, middle age, advanced age, and old age. We measure life by segments of time and often declare our time is too valuable for this or that. What makes anything valuable? Oftentimes, it is scarceness. If there is a scarcity, then that item or resource quickly escalates in value. So, if something is rare, it is usually valuable. But if we have an abundance of something, often the value diminishes. The same is frequently true with our time. Maybe that helps explain the ever-widening generation gap. Young people feel that they are invulnerable and have plenty of time. To them, time is not precious. They aren’t too concerned about wasting or squandering it.
On the other hand, as we grow older and wiser, we begin to realize that our time left is diminishing, therefore, it should be even more valuable. Those of us in our more senior decades tend to look at those under 25 and advise them, “Don’t waste time, it’s too valuable.” Usually, they will reply, “No, problem, we have lots of time left, we can waste it if we want.” And the wider the age gap, the wider the gap between the various values that we place on time.
The Bible often speaks of the brevity and strife of life. Here is the complete chapter of Job 7 from the New Living Bible.
“How mankind must struggle. A man’s life is long and hard, like that of a slave. How he longs for the day to end. How he grinds on to the end of the week and his wages. And so to me also have been allotted months of frustration, these long and weary nights. When I go to bed I think, ‘Oh, that it were morning,’ and then I toss till dawn.
“My skin is filled with worms and blackness. My flesh breaks open, full of pus. My life drags by—day after hopeless day. My life is but a breath, and nothing good is left. You see me now, but not for long. Soon you’ll look upon me dead. As a cloud disperses and vanishes, so those who die shall go away forever— gone forever from their family and their home—never to be seen again. Ah, let me express my anguish. Let me be free to speak out of the bitterness of my soul.
“O God, am I some monster that you never leave me alone? Even when I try to forget my misery in sleep, you terrify with nightmares. I would rather die of strangulation than go on and on like this. I hate my life. Oh, leave me alone for these few remaining days. What is mere man that you should spend your time persecuting him? Must you be his inquisitor every morning and test him every moment of the day? Why won’t you leave me alone—even long enough to spit?
“Has my sin harmed you, O God, watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your target, and made my life so heavy a burden to me? Why not just pardon my sin and take it all away? For all too soon I’ll lie down in the dust and die, and when you look for me, I shall be gone.”
Life, bleak or bountiful, can be compared as days to the weaver’s shuttle. Rapidly going back and forth to the shadows of the rolling seasons. In the warm, waning days of summer's dry heat, the vibrant spring grass, which grew up so lusciously quick, drys up and dies This is a metaphor of human lives. Like a photograph, life isn’t best when made in the darkest of less than bright moments. Yes, we can grow and develop from all the negatives. Life challenges sometimes take illumination to reveal the beauty of our existence. When the going gets tough, keep going forward, don’t give up.
Now we all realize God created the earth, the heavens, and all the universe for our benefit. He did a “Bang-Up” job of it if you ask me. But humankind, while in no comparison to the Great Creator, has invented a few things ourselves. Not wishing to stir up any theological arguments, I'll step out on a limb and say; mankind developed languages, fabricated numbers, and devised ways to measure time and distance. Therefore, I'll ask in advance for your forgiveness for the copious amount of numbers found in a few of the following paragraphs.
Statisticians tell us that the average lifespan for women in the USA is now 82 years and 78 for men. Be thankful you live in America, for those born in central Africa can expect to live only for 56 and 52 years, respectively. Those under thirty may think that is a long time. But if you are nearing or past my age, you are beginning to realize that every day wasted is a day lost, never to be recovered. Never to be relived except for the fading synapses firing off the less than perfect memories of our minds.
A study someone compiled, delineated what American people do with their time. These were the results: If we live to be 75, most of us will have spent 24 years of our life sleeping! We have labored 14 years while working day or night. Just plain goofing off or watching TV consumed 12 years. We spent 7 years of our time eating. Some of us less, and, obviously, some more. We have spent 5 years scooting around in our automobiles. We’ll have yakked away 5 years talking with each other. Again, some more and some less. We spent 3 solid years acquiring our education. We exhausted 3 years reading books, magazines, and newspapers. We’ll have washed out one whole year sick or recovering from health problems. I'd thought, based on my last 10 years, that figure was a little light. That's 75 years in total and that is what the researchers say most of us will have done with our lives. I guess that particular statistician never thought to ask about time invested in God, Church, or charity.
Let’s suppose that you devoted two hours every Sunday for 75 years to worship in God’s house. That would only be a mere 325 days. Most likely, more of your time was filled with exchanging love-life who-done-its or bragging about fast cars and successful hunting trips. But, as not to argue, let’s double your allotted church time because you’ve never missed a Wednesday or special holiday service. Even those and the extra sessions combined will total less than two years of hourly moments, and that is, just if you never missed a single Sunday School or Church service!
Think about that! Most spent or wasted half a life sleeping and goofing around, eating, driving, or maybe just plain-old gossiping? How many hours were devoted to God, in total, less than two years of Church and Sunday School! What is the real meaning of your life? What path are you on now that will become your destiny for all eternity?
Life is uncertain. Earthy death is assured. Your soul will go on for all eternity. The Bible teaches us about all that. Our time here is an invaluable, irreplaceable commodity encompassing our bodies and souls which are precious, yet vulnerable to pains as well as pleasures. Anyone or everyone might die in the very next moment. The unsaved will lose all. The Saved gain all! We are in our moment of time now! Today! Not yesterday or tomorrow. We don’t know anything about the future, but this slice of time is all that we have for certain. Because of the fragileness of our earthly lives, we must pray and accept God's grace. The Bible says, "In the time of my favor I heard you and in the day of salvation I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2) Matthew 24:44 says, "So you also must be ready because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." Because life is uncertain, we must take advantage of the time that we have.
DO NOT LET YOUR PAST ENSLAVE YOU
God, in His wisdom, has given us the ability to remember what we have done right or wrong. Mostly. We can waste many a moment by reliving in our minds both the good and bad of our previous events that took place in days past. Memories can be your friend or enemy. When you think back, hopefully, you’ll remember some very pleasant things about your more youthful years, but chances are that some negative things will come to mind. Remember them as life's lessons, if you will? But do not dwell on the unspeakable or even troublesome things. Often when we dwell on those bad things, we begin to feel sorry for ourselves.
Maybe this past year was a time of transition in your life. Possibly your rainy day savings are expiring and you are having a tough time making ends meet. Maybe a relative or other loved one died and you are trying to deal with the lingering grief and loneliness you feel. Maybe, even though now is too late, you wish you would've brought them to a bible study or to the font of a baptismal pool. At the very least, could you have anonymously asked a Pastor to call on them? Maybe the past year or two was a time when the sin of apathy got a real tight hold around your life. Now you feel the burdens and guilt of that sin. You see, those things can cripple us and hold us in bondage to the past. If we let them.
Paul had a very troublesome, sinful history. Paul persecuted the church. He used his authority to have Christians killed. By his own admission, he said, in a nonbraggadocio tone, “I am the chief of sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15) Paul refused to walk around all his life with an enormous encumbrance of guilt. Had he done so, that would have crippled him and he would never have become the great Disciple of Jesus we read and love today. For Paul told us to forget what is behind us and look to the God above us. In other words: “Commit yourself to God. Seek forgiveness for all the sins of the past, and look forward to what lies ahead.” Right now you should say to yourself; “I’m going to live all my remaining moments as best I can.”
WE NEED TO ESTABLISH MEANINGFUL PRIORITIES IN OUR LIVES
Now Paul obviously did more than one thing. He wrote letters, preached sermons, established churches, healed the sick, and authored the vast majority of the Books of the New Testament. He did a lot of different things for the good of Jews and Gentiles alike. As well as good things for the Churches he inspired. But he said, "The top priority in my life is to ‘press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” How different are your priorities?
Allow me to relate this example of a session of which you may have heard a similar interpretation. Once when a time-management expert was speaking to a group. “Okay,” he said, “It’s time for an informal quiz.” He set two wide-mouthed, glass mason jars on the table in front of him and the other items needed for this demonstration. Then he picked up several large-sized rocks and carefully stacked them, one at a time, inside the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top, he asked, “Is this jar full?” A few attendees sitting in the class voiced, “Yes.”
“No,” he said. Then he reached under the table and pulled out a pail of pebbles. He dumped the pebbles into the jar and shook it to settle some smaller stones among the space between the bigger rocks.
Then he smiled and asked the group once more, “Is the jar full, now?” By this time the class was on to him. “Probably not,” one of them offered.
“Good!” he replied and reached under the table to bring out a container of sand. Dumping the sand in, it filled all the spaces between the rocks and the pebbles.
Once more he asked, “Is this jar full?” “No!” the class shouted. Again he said, “Good!” Then he grabbed the water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.
Looking back at the class, he asked, “What do you think is the point of this illustration?” One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your time schedule is, if you work at it, you can more often than not fit more into it!”
“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point.”
Then he commenced to reverse-fill the remaining jar with water, sand, and pebbles. Lastly, he attempted to put in the same amount of the larger rocks which now didn't fit in well at all.
The truth this illustration teaches us is, if you don’t put the big rocks in first, your priorities, you’ll never fit them in at all. Even worst, if you poured the water in first, then the sand, and pebbles, the moment you tried to stuff the big rocks in the jar, you'd have a big mess on your hands.
Besides that, the big rocks you could not get in represent the primary goals you could not accomplish.
What are the big rocks you must juggle around to fit in your life? What are your priorities? Guess who should set your priorities? You! Do you, most every day draw nearer to God to spend time with Him in prayer, and seek His guidance for your life through reading, or better yet, hearing, His Word. Remember, set aside time for the important things first, or you may never accomplish the critical tasks at all.
It was Jesus who said, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)
The world is reminded that “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.” In His love, God offered us the most wonderful gift that we could ever receive. Did and do we readily accept it? Let me present another little story about a lady engulfed by hard times. Due to the recent rampant inflation, the cost of food and basic services like rent, gas, water, and utilities skyrocketed against her meager Social Security check. She like many others, had a tough time meeting her obligations. She plain ran out of money. She couldn’t pay all she owed to all the companies sending her bills. So she cut back on food. She canceled her cellphone service. She missed a month or two's rent, promising to make it up as she could. The landlord sent her an eviction letter that threatened to put her out in the street if she didn’t pay soon.
Distraught, she dialed the thermostat way down to save on the heating bill. She put on double layers of clothing and a sweater to keep her warmer. She even lit some of her collection of ornamental candles in the evening to save on electricity.
Then came an unexpected knock on her door. She was afraid to answer, fearing it was the landlord coming to forcefully kick her out. Quickly, she blew out her reading candle and cowered quietly in the dark, waiting for the man to leave or break down her door. The person left, but the next day the landlord came and she was evicted indeed. Weeks later, at a homeless shelter's soup kitchen, she found out the knocking on her door had been a friend from church who had stopped by to leave a gift of money to pay her rent and free her from the overdue debt. It was too late! But for the love and promise of Jesus Christ, it is never too late to love Him and decide to turn our lives in a more Christian direction.
How many have heard the gentle knock of our Savior? He wants ever so much for us to cleave to Him and be free from the burdens, and our sin? Have you answered His call? Most of us, if not all of us gathered here have.
Now time itself has grasped the mind of Biblical scholars, poets, and common people. And often our thoughts dwell on time more distractedly than they should. But our time on this earth is a resource that we should exhaust on thoughts and actions that praise and serve the Lord, doing His will to help others as we guide others towards His loving bosom. We need to reach out to help others in His name.
Shakespeare wrote many individual lines about time and its relationship to mankind. Here are some of those lines, with which, I took the liberty of re-sequencing them to appear like this:
Nothing 'against time's scythe can make a defense.
Time, that takes a survey of all the world,
Time ... thou ceaseless lackey to eternity.
Make use of time, let not advantage slip.
Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
Let every man be master of his time.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
The beauty within itself should not be wasted;
Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock.
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs, they jar,
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch.
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what the hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart.
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours.
Thus we play the fool with the time,
and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
Do you know the value of your time? A better question might be; Do you, diligently do His calling? You still have time to do more in helping the Holy spirit save souls. Amen.
Please feel free to contact me, Dennis King, at DoJ@mail.com if you have questions, comments, corrections, or just wish to share your troubles or testimonies.
