Life is all about timing

Perhaps front and foremost in the minds of most Americans right now is the economy. With Congress having passed the largest spending bill in the history of our country, the increasing loss of jobs, and the fact that Wall Street as well as the overall economy plunging to new lows, many economic "advisors" are scrambling to determine the best course of action to take, and what recommendation to make to their clients regarding their investments. The rule of thumb when it comes to investments is to maintain "consistency" – don't jump "in" and "out" of the market; just remain consistent in the ups and downs of a market economy and the give and take of the economy will usually balance out in the long run. In the final analysis, however, no one knows what the future holds and the best we can do is use what wisdom the Lord gave us to guide us in our decisions. Unfortunately hind-sight is always better than fore-sight, and our timing in matters pertaining to the material has a lot to do with whether we come out in the positive or suffer with others who have lost their life's savings in such times as these. Someone has pointed out, "Life is all about timing; the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable attainable! Have the patience, wait it out. It's all about timing." Of course those words of wisdom were addressed to precisely what I was speaking about above. But permit me, if you will, to make a little different application of those "timely" words.

You and I are limited by time. We are moving from the "now" to "what shall be." Our "tomorrow" quickly becomes "today" and "today" is soon in the "past." So quickly do the days, weeks and years pass that we respect the words of Moses with increasing appreciation: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten, Or even by reason of strength fourscore years; Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow; For it is soon gone, and we fly away" (Psa. 90:10). Time is a precious commodity that each of us has in equal proportion. We are all given 24 hours in the day, and 365 days in a year. We are admonished in Scripture to redeem the time wisely. This simply means I am to buy up the opportunities that come my way, and select with great wisdom and prudence how, and upon what, I will spend those precious hours in each day. There is an accumulative effect of the use of time. For example, in an average 70 year life span, the average person will sleep more than 23 years of his life away (assuming 8 hours of sleep per night). Over that same 70 year life span you will spend roughly 14 years working, 6 years eating, and 5 years traveling (fortunately, not all at once). By the same token, time wasted has an accumulative effect, and over the long haul will rob us of a great deal of what could otherwise be significant accomplishments. Think, for example, about the time we spend watching television. The average American (according to those infamous "polls") watches TV 6 hours per day. Now that really seems a little high, so let's reduce that by 30%, and use a bench mark of 4 hours per day. That amounts to 28 hours per week, 1460 hours per year, for an accumulative total of more than 72,000 hours in 50 years. Whew! It staggers the imagination. That is more than 8 years of television!

Now, in comparison, let us consider the "average" time spent in spiritual matters! If we were to begin the day of our birth spending five minutes each morning and evening in prayer and meditation (which is more than most people spend), and three hours per week in church, at age 70 we would have invested a total of just over 20 months!

Someone has said, "There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week's value out of a year while another man gets a full year's value out of each week." What can be said of the year is just as true with regard to the week, and even our day by day activities. "We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work" (John 9:4). I leave you with the words of an unknown poet:

When as a child, I laughed and wept,

Time crept;

When as a youth, I dreamed and talked,

Time walked;

When I became a full grown man,

Time ran;

When older still I daily grew,

Time flew;

Soon I shall find in traveling on,

Time gone!

by Tom Wacaster