“Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” – Jim Rohn
“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Michelangelo and Mother Teresa.” – H. Jackson Brown
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” – Albert Einstein
We are clock watchers, watch watchers and now cell phone watchers! Oh, how times have changed – when someone asks what time is it now – rather than looking at our wrist, what do we do? We pull out our cell phones!
Many times we don’t even have time for a “time out” as we watch how fast time marches on. Oh, if I could put time in a bottle.
Time presents a problem for many people. One woman said, “I have trouble being on time. I guess it’s hereditary. It goes back a long way. My ancestors came over on the June-flower.”
Everyone, rich or poor, famous or unknown, has exactly 1440 minutes a day, 168 hours in a week, 8,760 hours in a year and 657,000 hours in a lifespan of 75 years. No one has any more time than anyone else.
Someone once said, “Our world is like a clockmakers shop with thousands of timepieces forever ticking.” For some, life is just starting, for some it’s half over, for all of us, time keeps on running and will one day stop.
Time moves in a relentless, yet beautiful progression as the earth rotates, the planets spin around in their orbit, the seasons change and new life replaces the old. To use an old cliché, time waits for no one.
We tell time by clocks, by the position of the sun, moon and stars, and also by wrinkles and gray hairs. Time is life’s most precious commodity.
When we are young we think we have all the time in the world. In the intensive care unit at a hospital nurses and doctors say in whispered voices, “it’s just a matter of time.” The silence is broken only by the monitor beeping, the pumps wheezing and the steady rhythmic whirring of the machines. We heal or we die by moments of time.
Time is one of life’s greatest values because we must exchange a block of precious, never to be recovered time, for everything we do. Absolutely everything! Most overnight success stories didn’t happen overnight, but are the result of years of small events and great efforts.
What is time? Listen to this poem…
Time is:
Too slow for those who wait,
Too fast for those who fear
Too long for those who grieve,
Too short for those who rejoice,
But for those who love, time is Eternity.
Time puts a lot of pressure on us! There’s so much to do in so little time! It’s become a way of life now to multi-task. It’s the way of the foreseeable future. It’s the new normal. And in this hectic world that seems volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, few people think of going to a quiet place and just meditating – letting your mind go. How would your life be different if you incorporated some meditation in your life on a daily basis?
Please take a moment of silence – 20 seconds.
How was that for you? Did your mind go to a beautiful place or were you thinking of your “to do” list? Time management is a big thing in life – and you know what time management really is, it’s about time choices. How we prioritize things in our life.
Every day we have thousands of choices to make. We are bombarded by businesses selling products constantly urging us, with non-stop advertisements, to buy, buy, buy, until we have neither the time, nor the space to store all our time consuming “stuff.”
How can we use this precious gift of time?
As we get older time becomes more precious. Which is probably why we feel like it’s flying, going faster than it did before. We always value scarce things. The less we have of something the more value we place on it.
Jesus had an astonishing attitude toward time. He could say in a prayer in John 17:4:
“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”
Those who knew Jesus in the flesh must have marveled after his death at the “way he spent his time.” He never ran, never seemed to be in a hurry, and didn’t start his ministry until he was 30. (What could he have done if he had started at 25?)
His only preparation for leaving his ministry in the hands of the 12 disciples was to make sure they understood his teaching. Nothing is said about him setting up organizations, building a building, or leaving any kind of detailed programs for his disciples to follow.
Jesus had time to let little children sit on his lap, time to pray, time to rest and time to go to parties. He often spent time eating with people and talking with them about the things of God. That was what he was called to do. He finished his work.
“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”
How did Jesus do it?
First, he knew exactly what he was called to accomplish with his life. There were many things he could have done with his life, but he knew his mission and he adamantly refused to be distracted from that mission. He didn’t try to do everything himself, but instead called disciples and trained them to carry out the mission.
Second, Jesus understood his own limits. He was God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, but he refused to use his miraculous power for his own personal benefit. Remember, it was his mom who pressured him to turn the water into wine at the wedding.
He couldn’t be in two places at once and he embraced the same human limitations that we have. He knew what it was to be tired, hungry, lonely, angry and burdened. He used divine wisdom when he simply took time to rest, pray, be quiet and rebuild his spent energy. As our Scripture reading says, there is a time for everything!
And finally, Jesus lived his life in the sure knowledge of the eternal now. He lived in the moment, he understood the power of now, but always had eternity in mind. This helped him with his priorities and using his time wisely.
Paul said in Eph. 5:15 that opportunities come and are soon gone, so make the best of them: “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what God’s will is.”
The truth about our life is not found in the resolutions we make, or our good intentions, but in the things we do day after day. In fact, our lives are the sum of our choices and actions. Our action and behavior is a much more reliable guide to what we are than our words. God has given us the wonderful gift of time, a time for everything. So, let’s make the most of it by what we do with our lives.
We only have so much time to live. We spend a third of our time sleeping. And eating and bathing cost us time. When we look at a normal day it’s amazing how much time we spend on things that will have little or no significance later on.
In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world that is rapidly changing remember that God is your constant. The same – yesterday, today and forever!
“God, help us to live each day to the fullest, making the best of our time – with no regrets! Amen.”
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the senior pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met), 2633 Denver Street, San Diego, California, themetchurch.org. Services every Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m.
