Sadly, this week on my way to work I witnessed a traffic accident on a busy boulevard just two blocks from my house. Emergency vehicles with lights flashing had parked strategically to protect a fallen bicyclist who had just been hit by a car. I couldn’t tell how seriously the rider was injured. I hope the person is okay. As I drove by I thought about the need to remind my son of being vigilant each day as he rides his bike to high school. However, even when doing your best you never know when an accident may occur. Likewise, you also never know when the days given you to live are done. Therefore it’s important to make the most of each day. Time waits for no one. It’s limited and how much you have is a mystery. Use it wisely.
Prioritize
You can’t make more time, but you can maximize it by prioritizing what’s important and not wasting this precious gift. When you step back and observe the panoramic skyline of your life, only a few points rise above everything else: you, other people, and God. Life is primarily made of these relationships. Everything else is secondary. Here are a few thoughts about using your time wisely in each area.
- Yourself: You are important and well worth investing in. God created you and loves you. However, many people misunderstand and abuse what he has given them. They focus on indulging themselves with God’s blessings. However, the time, talents, and treasure God has entrusted you are not primarily meant to be spent on yourself, but rather to be given away to others. The most rewarding experiences of your life are not in fulfilling yourself, but in denying yourself by faith and letting God fill you with himself. As you do all the amazing attributes of God become real to you and overflow from you to others. Jim Elliott, a Christian missionary who loved the Huaroni people of Ecuador, understood this wonderful truth. Before he as killed for trying to share God’s love and salvation with them, he wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Invest in yourself by putting your faith in God. Confess any wrongdoing and receive his forgiveness. Ask him to show you how to best use your time to live rightly. He has given you Jesus to show you how. Follow him. Only with God will you experience true life and become all you were meant to be.
- Other People: God has placed you in other people’s lives for a reason. Sometimes it is just for a moment, sometimes for a season, and sometimes for you whole life. It is not for you to get what you can from them, but rather what you can give to them. Don’t value things and use people. Turn it around. Value people and use things. Mother Teresa, a Catholic nun who served for decades helping the poor and the sick in India, challenged people with this statement, “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.” Take time to really see people. Value them not for what they do or don’t do, but for who they are as someone created in God’s image. Get to know them. Care for their needs as you are able. Speak God’s truth into their lives. Hopefully the time you spend planting a seed of God’s love and salvation in their life becomes a harvest of faith in Jesus.
- God’s Way: When Jesus was ministering on earth before his death and resurrection he warned people, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light” (John 12:35-36). Today there is still this same sense of urgency. Don’t ignore or put off what God is trying to show you. If you continue to do so then the light of his way for you becomes harder to discern. Instead spend time discovering what pleases God. Then walk in that radiating light by his grace and power. The missionary leader Oswald Sanders claimed, “The best use of one’s life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” What you do now impacts your life and the lives of those around you. It also prepares you for what you will be doing throughout eternity. Abide in Jesus like a branch draws its life from the vine. Then you will bear useful fruit that lasts and makes a glorious difference all to the praise of God (John 15:1-8).
Conclusion
Each day is a gift from God. At times life in this broken world of fallen people storms like a tempest Other times it lifts our wings as we glide on its refreshing, gentle breeze. Some days are painful and some are wonderful. Give each of them back to God and let him comfort and guide you through them. Make the most of the opportunities he opens up. Don’t become weary in doing good, for at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up (Galatians 6:9). Trust God, walk with Jesus, and invest your time wisely by his grace and power.