How much time do you have?
“My entire lifetime is just a moment.” Ps 39:5 NLT After examining his patient, the doctor told him, “I have some bad news for you, and some really bad news.” Shocked, the patient asked, “What’s the bad news?” The doctor said, “You have twenty-four hours to live.” The patient said, “Well, I guess it can’t get any worse, so what’s the really bad news?” The doctor replied, “The really bad news is that I should have called you yesterday.” Seriously, the Bible says, “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty…soon they disappear” (Ps 90:10 NLT). The average man lives into his mid-seventies and the average woman into her mid-eighties. So if you’re a man, take your age and deduct it from seventy-five. And if you’re a woman, take your age and deduct it from eighty-five. Whatever number of years you’re left with, multiply those by 365 and you’ll know how many “days” you have left. But don’t stop there. Take some sheets of paper and cut them up into little squares. Number each of them, and then put them in a box. That way you’ll know “[your] days are numbered” (Ps 39:4 NLT). Then each morning take a square out of the box, roll it up, and toss it into the trash can. That little exercise will remind you that your days are getting shorter and time’s running out. Whatever you plan to do for yourself, your family and friends, and the kingdom of God, you’ll have a new urgency in doing it. Poet Charles Thomas Studd wrote, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”
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