Make the Most of Your Hours

Have you ever counted the hours you have each day or even each week? We get roughly 15 hours awake each day and 105 hours each week. If you live to be 85, you will have about 465,375 hours of awake time.

At my age, I realized that means I have about 207,480 hours left. I won’t lie, I teared up. (but, I plan on living to be 100, so I am praying that number is greater!)

Ouch. Think about how important each hour of your life is when you think about how little you really have here on earth. All those missed opportunities to be kind to someone. All those times you didn’t sit and listen to your spouse. All those moments your kids asked you to play a board game. We can’t turn back the clock.

My cousin was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident several years ago. He was so incredibly young, and it was all gone in an instant. I think about him often and so many others. I have a friend whose daughter was killed in an automobile accident, she was the young mother to 2 little ones. I think about a friend whose parents were both killed when logs from a truck fell off and onto their car. And, today, I think about all the men and women who died in 9/11. I listened to a relative talking about what might have been going through their brother’s mind when he raced into the danger of the towers, knowing that would likely mean he was giving his life up that moment. There’s only One who knows the hours we have on this earth.  I think about how important each day is when we don’t know that number.

What are you giving way to in this temporal home instead of storing up treasures in Heaven? What are you allowing within your four walls for your kids that keeps you from spending the heart time with them they need?

I was in a waiting room today with about 7 other people, all varying in age. Every single one of them was staring at their phone. I thought about the wasted opportunities to meet and talk with strangers. I thought about all the time this happens at restaurants with whole families on their phones during dinner.

I feel like God’s heart must break and the devil is partying with all the divisive ways our new world has made us spend our time. What a wasted day so many of us can recall if we think about what we accomplished in the relationship department. So many of us have not breathed much goodness into anyone, but a lot of time and mindless scrolling have sucked away hours we will never get back.

My greatest prayer is that we can break one of the biggest, most silent addictions in our country. The smartphone. I pray that people will start realizing how little they are in control of the countdown clock they are living by. And, I pray we as parents would start making the most of every hour we are blessed with to benefit, love on, and teach our children to walk with Jesus daily.

Imagine what life will look and feel like at age 85 if you’ve spent your hours well. Imagine getting to greet your kids at Heaven’s gates because of all the hours you poured into them and their relationship with Him. Life is so much more than the mind control our phones have over us and our time. I pray as you reflect on today, you let the heaviness of 9/11 and those who didn’t know their hours were up stir within you the desire to make the most of yours.