As we come near the end of another year, it is a good thing
to pause and reflect on our life, as well as our relationship with God.
Here is the prayer of Moses, a man who spoke to God face
to face.
Psalm 90:12. Teach us
to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. NIV
Psalm 90:12. Teach us
to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom. NLT
Life is short. We enter through the door of birth and leave
through the door of death and none of us know the distance between. Most
tombstones have a birth date and a death date and a dash or hyphen in-between.
Right now we are living in that dash. Yet what we do in time, will echo through
eternity, including the choices we make.
If life were a 24-hour clock, what time is it for you? When we were born the clock began to run. When we die, the clock stops running. What if we get only 24 hours on our clock of life? Under these rules, what time is it in your life? Is it 10.00 am, noon, 5.00 pm or is it nearly midnight?
According to the World Bank, life expectancy for an average human being is currently numbered at 78.4 years. If 78.4 years represents our average life span, we can assume our clock will hit 24 hours when we reach that age. We have 24 hours of time to live and it will take us 78.4 years to live that 24 hours. Therefore, each hour will be represented by 3.267 years of life lived (78.4 years divided by 24 hours of our life clock).
- When your 24-hour clock reaches 3 A.M. you will have lived almost 10 years of life.
- When you reach the age of 20 years old your 24-hour clock reads 6:24 in the morning.
- At 30 years of age, it's just after 9.00 am in the morning
- At 40 years of age, it's past noon for you.
- A person 50 years old is looking at the clock and it shows a time of 3:18 pm. That person is approaching dinner time in their life. They have less than 9 hours remaining in life on their 24-hour clock.
- A person 60 years old is looking at the clock and it shows a time of 6:22 pm in the evening. That person has less than 6 hours remaining on their 24-hour life clock.
If your life clock was a 24-hour clock, what time is it right now? Do the math.
You will discover that you do not have a lot of time remaining to do the things you wanted to do when you had more time. The clock is beginning to squeeze out some of the things you dreamed to do. This type of process requires you to make some serious adjustments in your life. You begin to work on developing the things you can do that are the most important things you should be doing. You eliminate the things that do not matter as much and begin to focus on the ones that matter the most.
Your clock is too short to permit useless activities to steal your precious time, unless they are recreational activities as part of your weekly Sabbath. After all, we all need to play too.
What time is it on your 24-hour clock? How much time do you have remaining to do the things that matter the most? What will those things be and how will you make the most out of the adjustments you need to make? I think it is a good time right now to begin that change, if you are not currently doing what matters the most. You better get started. Your clock is ticking away.
[Source]
See also Living in Light of Eternity