How Are You Going to Spend Your Year?

January 3, 2014

“Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.”  (Psalm 90:12, NLT)

According to Moses, we should realize that life is like a game of Monopoly.  We all begin with the same amount of currency.  When we begin a new year we are given 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week and 8,760 hours a year.  You often hear the remark: “I haven’t got time for that!” This implies that we are not given the same amount of time.  It would be more accurate to say: “I don’t value that activity enough to spend some of my time in that way.”

The dictionaries tell us a value is “that quality of any certain thing by which it is determined by us to be more or less important, useful, profitable and therefore desirable.” We all have a set of values.  We spend our time on the things we consider important, useful, profitable and desirable.

When we ask God to teach us how to spend our time He will challenge us to consider the values of Jesus Christ.  One of the many reasons He became flesh and lived among us for 33 years was to show us how to live.  He did that by presenting us with a set of values.  As we read the four Gospels and follow Jesus every time He models and teaches a value, that spiritual discipline will revolutionize the way we spend our time.

I challenge you to ask God, “How should I spend my time?” I also challenge you to let the values of Christ revolutionize the way you spend your time in 2014.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

A Common Currency

January 4, 2012

“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

In this profound Psalm Moses gives us a wise perspective with which to begin a new year.  He writes of the brevity of our life span.  He states that God gives us seventy or eighty years of life.  Then he suggests a solemn prayer that God might teach us to number our days and gain a heart filled with wisdom.

A missionary was speaking to a primitive group of people.  Because some of the listeners had traveled for days or more than a week to hear him speak, when he concluded a message they would ask him to continue speaking.  After many hours had passed they asked him through the interpreter if he was wearing his god on his wrist because each time they asked him to continue he looked at his watch as if seeking permission.  We should not value time to the point that it is our god, but the thesis of Moses in this Psalm is that we should value time because we do not have very much of it.

With great fairness God gives everyone the common currency of 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week and 8,760 hours a year.  Since life is a short trip we should value that common currency and ask Him for the wisdom to know how to spend that time by the year, the month, the week, the day, the hour and the minute.

We wear timepieces because we value life.  Let’s ask God to give us the wisdom to know how He wants us to spend the time He gives us in 2012.

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Posted by Dick Woodward