Have you noticed that time keeps passing by, regardless of what we do with it?

Image by Wasabi Bob via Flickr

In the middle of this crazy, fast-paced world of ours, I seldom hear people expressing gratitude and respect for the gift of time. More often than not, time seems to represent something that we are fighting against or that we have too little of. We’re stressed because we’re out of time, or we’re fighting to make the most of our time.

I get all of that—I am huge in to time-management principles, and, having lost a loved one in her childhood, I am all too aware of how fleeting our time here on earth really is. Even so, I sometimes think that we approach the concept of time all wrong.

Time is our friend.

• It allows our failures to fade in to the sunset, and it gives us the hope of redeeming things that have been lost.
• If we squander it today, a fresh twenty-four hours will greet us tomorrow, and we’ll have a chance to spend it more carefully than we did the day before.
• If we use it wisely today, it will compound and pay great dividends in the future (in MANY more areas than just finances).

When Bill Philips, author of Body for Life, is urging people to take his twelve-week physical fitness challenge, he says: “At the end of twelve weeks will you say, ‘I wish I would have’ or ‘I’m glad I did’?”

What will we say at the end of our life? Right now, time is our friend. Let’s treat it as such so that when it’s over we won’t be wishing we “would have,” but instead will hear the words “well done” coming down to us from heaven (Matthew 25:21).