I had been out of the office for two weeks due to various travels. When I sat down at my desk, I noticed my calendar still showed March even though it was now April 1st. As I tore the top sheet of paper off, I thought how fast time passes these days.
Time. It’s wrapping up quickly. Truly. Even as I continue working on this one article, another two months have come and gone. I’m tempted to take another photo of my office calendar, but the original one confirms the point I’m attempting to convey. Time doesn’t stop for any one person or generation. It just keeps rolling forward until, one day known to God, it will be no more.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
Each of us is only allotted a certain number of days. Unfortunately, we don’t get to know that number. In an age where medical knowledge has increased exponentially, it isn’t uncommon for people to live to one hundred years or more. Still, every day we hear of people who die suddenly in accidents or a disease that lurked in their bodies, unseen. Sometimes people die for no apparent reason.
Scripture tells us that we are allotted 70 years, and if we live to 80, those extra years are likely to be full of sorrow. This allotment of years is a general lifespan, but truly, life and death are in God’s hands, not ours.
“For all our days are passed away in thy wrath:
we spend our years as a tale that is told.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labour and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger?
even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:9-12)
To a child, 70 to 80 years seems like an eternity. Those of us who have more decades behind us than before us realize how fast those years pass. Time is a tool that we have to serve God with. We can let it pass without observation, letting decades pile up behind us, or we can be mindful of its passing, and harness it for a purpose.
“Time is a tool that we have to serve God with. We can let it pass without observation, letting decades pile up behind us, or we can be mindful of its passing, and harness it for a purpose.” -Pat Vick Share on XHOW ARE YOU SPENDING YOUR ALLOTMENT OF DAYS?
Are you using your allotted days for God’s glory, or your own? For God’s purpose, or your own? Are you spending your days seeking only happiness, or to be beneficial to the Kingdom of God? Are you concerned about experiencing and accumulating, or pursuing your God-given Calling? Have you deadened your conscience with substances and thrills in order to quiet the small, still voice of God’s Spirit beckoning you to a life of purpose? When you come to the end of your days, which could be any day now, will you be embarrassed by how much more you could have done for God?
TICK TOCK SAYS THE CLOCK
It’s so easy to get caught up in living day to day that we forget the passing of time. Likewise, it’s very easy to get caught up in living in the flesh that we forget about eternity. However, just because we go about our days with no thought for what comes afterward, doesn’t mean it’s not coming. Every time you see a new calendar page, or hear the tick tock of a clock, let it remind you to use your days wisely, because the day is coming quickly when you’ll have to give account for what you did with each of them.
“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Revelation 20:11-12)
We all want to live productive lives. Lives full of meaning. Beneficial to our families, our communities, and to the Kingdom of God. Most of humanity goes through life hoping for this to be true, but we don’t have to leave it to chance.