Time on Our Hands
“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16, (NKJV)
You can’t buy it. You can’t sell it. You can’t spend it. You can’t save it. And yet, it is more valuable than anything else in your life.
Some people waste it. Others kill it. Some race against it. Some are on it, others behind it. All of us desperately want more of it.
It marches. It can be measured. It keeps. But it waits for no one. And someday, according to scripture, it shall be no more.
What is it?
Time.
It’s the beginning of a new year. A time for new beginnings, new opportunities, and chasing those dreams that God has placed in our hearts.
You might say, we have time on our hands, and these two verses from Ephesians give us some advice on what to do with it.
The word translated “redeeming” in this passage literally means “to purchase for the purpose of setting free.” It is used to describe what Christ did for us through the cross. The apostle Peter reminds us that we were redeemed “not with corruptible things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ.” (I Peter 1:18-19) I strongly suspect that the apostle Paul chose this word here in Ephesians to communicate to you and me just how sacred time is. Super Bowl advertisements for 2021 are costing $5.6 million dollars for thirty seconds, but the truth is time can be much more valuable than that. When Queen Elizabeth I was on her deathbed, it’s reported that she said, “All my possessions for a moment of time.”
So, time is valuable. Time is sacred.
Psalm 90:12 offers some good advice to all of us when it encourages us saying, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Let me encourage you to take some time today, and in the days ahead, to ask God to help you make the most of your time in this new year.
In Christ,
Dan