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TIME IS
WONDERFUL! for tuesdays
What Are You
Doing With it?
September 18, 2011
BELOW IS FOR TUESDAY JUNE 12 2012
Ephesians 5:15-17.
Be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise.
Be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise.
Make the most of every opportunity for doing
good in these evil days.
Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to
understand what the Lords wants you to do.
In time, from
the stretches of eternity…therein is God.
And therefore how you use this precious gift is of no small importance.
There is wasted time over which
you really don’t have any control, such as: How much time do you spend waiting
for a green light you just missed? Or
returning calls to people who are then never there when you return their
call.
But what about the wasted time
over which you do have control? Those
wasted minutes that will never exist again - a slice of eternity dropped as if
worthless at your feet.
Charles Francis Adams, the
19th century political figure and diplomat, and son of John Quincy Adams and grandson of John Adams, kept a diary. He had a superb
family lineage but perhaps not always the best concept of what was worthy of
his time for one day he penned: “Went fishing with my son today. A day wasted.”
However, his son, Brook Adams,
also kept a diary, which is also still in
existence, and on that same day he made this entry, “Went fishing with
my father. The most wonderful day of my
life!”
And therein lies part of the problem.
Are we capable of judging what is worthless or worthwhile when it comes
to the use of that precious commodity called time? Do we too often misjudge what is important or
not important at all?
Do we need, on a regular basis,
to prayerfully run our daily schedule by the throne of grace? A kind of godly filtering to keep our
thinking straight. A prayer something
like , “Lord, help me not to waste my life and help me to know the difference”
rather than foolishly frittering away precious life portions with little or no
concern.
I’ve got an 84th birthday
coming up in a few days and like everyone else, I ask,
“Where did the time go?” But I also ask, “And what did I do with it while
it was
going?”
How much more earthly time do I
have left? I have no idea, but I do know
that when one is young they feel they have forever to straighten their life
out.
Speaking of wisely allocating time: Each of you, when attending church, have made
a conscious effort to straighten up your thinking. And when you are there, challenge yourself to
make the most of this worship time.
To pray deeply and not let your
mind wander.
To sing whole heartily rather
than mumble or not sing at all.
And as you drive home, will you apply what you have
heard to your life, or will you think, What the preacher said had nothing to do
with me. Or even if it does, will you
think, I’m certainly not going to re-arrange my way of living just because of
what I heard.
How did the morning’s scripture
begin… “Be careful how you live…”
So consider, how do you live? Carefully with thoughtfulness - or carelessly
because you couldn’t care less?
Proverbs 10:17 says, “Whoever practices discipline is on the way to
life.”
Do you consider yourself disciplined?
Do you have a quiet time with God
on a regular basis? Filling your head
and heart with the reality of an eternal God?
Is this kind of discipline for your soul a part of your time management?
Do you exercise consistently to build your muscles,
and eat less to maintain a good body weight?
Is this kind of discipline for your body a part of your time management?
Have you disciplined your habits?
Are you a habitual liar or a
habitual truth teller?
Do
you have the habit of saying “no” to all the opportunities to sin that come
your way or do you often give in and give up when it comes to disciplining your
daily actions?
A key difference between
successful-in-life people and those who struggle to get by is
self-discipline.
Disciplined folk don’t waste time. Undisciplined folk squander far too much time
accomplishing very little.
Successful-in-life people have formed the habits of doing those things
that most people don’t want to do.
As
Confucius wrote, “The nature of people is always the same; it is their habits
that separate them.”
When Polish pianist Ignace Jan
Paderewsky played before Queen Victoria, he won her enthusiastic approval. “Mr.
Paderewsky,” she exclaimed, “you are a genius.” Paderewsky shook his head.
“Perhaps, Your Majesty, but before that I was a drudge.” Alluding to the years he had spent practicing
and the number of hours he continued to spend practicing every day.
The writer
Coleridge is the supreme example of a genius who wasted his writing talent by
having a mind filled with all kind of books he never transcribed.
He was one of my favorite writers in college and as I read what
little he did actually put to paper I would almost weep at his wasted life.
Discipline
without some sacrifice is not discipline.
It’s a student studying when he had rather be enjoying the companionship
of his fellow classmates. It’s parents
attending a PTA meeting when
they’d rather be watching a movie. It’s
walking a mile or two when you’d rather sleep an extra hour.
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