The answer to the title question is 24, right? Dah! Some days seem shorter than others, we all get that. For me, this last weekend didn’t seem like two days but one stretched a little longer than 24 hours. It went by so quick. We can all relate to having time fly right by us.
One of my priorities each day is managing my time. If I don’t manage it, it is wasted and gone, and I cannot get it back. This includes my sleep time, my getting ready for work time, my travel to work and back time, my time with family and friends, my time on pastoral duties, relax time, and so forth. I maybe sounding too rigid, but I’m no different than you. You do the same, but you may not have thought of it this way.
It would be easy for my devotional time with God to be lost in that busy 24 hour period. What do I do so this necessary part of my day doesn’t get lost and I miss it? I plan for it. I prioritize it. I plan and prioritize other important parts of my day–sleep, getting ready for work, travel to work, meal-time, spending time with family, chores, and etc. I wouldn’t I take the same approach to this important part of my life–devotional alone time with my God. I need this time in my life. I NEED IT! It is a priority and so I treat it as such.
Honesty says that I waste a good chunk of time during each day. This is actually squandering time on frivolous actions; seriously we do, all of us do … everyday. I don’t think it is necessary for me to list the most common ways we foolishly waste time. I am challenging you to examine your daily routine, each step of it. God has given us 24 hours in each day and there is ample time to drink from the fountain of life within that 24 hours. If you are still unsure whether you can find that time for His fountain, here is the sure fix: Make it a higher priority!
Thomas Brooks gives us another one of his objections to those who have convinced themselves that they do not have time in the day to spend in private communion with their God.
It is ten to one but that the objector every day fools away, or trifles away, or idles away, or sins away, one hour in a day, and why then should he object the want of time? There are none that toil and moil and busy themselves most in their worldly employments, but do spend an hour or more in a day to little or no purpose, either in gazing about, or in dallying, or toying, or courting, or in telling of stories, or in busying themselves in other men’s matters, or in idle visits, or in smoking the pipe, &c.
And why then should not these men redeem an hour’s time in a day for private prayer, out of that time which they usually spend so vainly and idly? Can you, notwithstanding all your great worldly employments, find an hour in the day to catch flies in, as Domitian the emperor did? and to play the fool in? and cannot you find an hour in the day to wait on God in your closets?
There were three special faults whereof Cato professed himself to have seriously repented: one was, passing by water when he might have gone by land; another was, trusting a secret in a woman’s bosom; but the main was, spending an hour unprofitably. This heathen will one day rise up in judgment against them who, notwithstanding their great employments, spend many hours in a week unprofitably, and yet cry out with the Duke of Alva, that they have so much to do on earth, that they have no time to look up to heaven. It was a base and sordid spirit in that King Sardanapalus, who spent much of his time amongst women in spinning and carding, which should have been spent in ruling and governing his kingdom. So it is a base sordid spirit in any, to spend any of their time in toying and trifling, and then to cry out, that they have so much business to do in the world, that they have no time for closet-prayer, they have no time to serve God, nor to save their own precious and immortal souls.
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Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, p. 203). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.
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