15 Nov Using Time Wisely

“If only I had more time!” How often have we said that? Time is an oxymoron, it waits for no one.Time is a thief; it steals away your peace. How are we using our time today? Are we treasuring it, using it to our maximum advantage or squandering it in wanton waste?

A.W. Tozer says, “When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.” Yes, Time past is time over which has no power, but time to come lays upon each one of us as how are we going to make use of it.

Do you know, what is the problem of many youngsters today? They’re never on time. They always think we have ‘tomorrow’ to work on and so we need not worry about today and hence they always find an excuse to escape ‘the present’ but a wise man named Bill Keane once said, “Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is mystery, Today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the Present”. It is very sad to say, we are living in an hour where many people fail to realize the value of time. But, a certain anonymous author penned while writing about the value of time;

To realize the value of one year, ask a student who has failed a grade.
To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week, ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute; ask a person who has missed the train, bus or plane.
To realize the value of one second, ask a person who has survived an accident.
To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

This anonymous author has a very keen sense of the time. Time is something we often take for granted, unless we have some focused purpose in our life. Every human being has got exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. It is upto us how we use it or plan to make the most of it.
In Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins, the five wise ones carried the oil with them, and were prepared for the night. But the five foolish ones went to buy it at the last moment, and missed the wedding banquet.

Use time wisely
This is exactly today’s scenario with almost everyone.We love to do our jobs at last moment. We think we are last moment workers. But, if we want to achieve something in our lives, then we have to be systematic because goals are not achieved in a single day. Also, last moment workers can never be equal to the people who work hard every single day constantly. For example, if we’re given a particular project to finish in ten days, what we usually do is, take rest for eight days and suddenly something inside us wakes up on the ninth day and we rush to complete the given work at the last moment. We may finish it, but we can never be satisfied with our work. So, let’s be wise and use time wisely.

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with 86,400 and it carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Remember, each of us has a bank within us. It’s name is time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever you have failed to invest in a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits.

So, how are we using our present? Just think about it. You may be rich enough but you can’t buy more hours. You may be a scientist but you can’t invent new minutes. Also, you can never save today’s time to spend it on another day. Remember, time is limited and it is still running and it waits for no one. So, utilize it to the maximum and make use of each and every opportunity that you get. Put in your maximum efforts in ‘today’ in order to get a better ‘tomorrow’. Also, invest time so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is still running, seize the day.

“Make the most of every opportunity” – Ephesians 5:16

David Jose is a student of Bharath University, Chennai and is part of EU Cell