Wednesday, August 24, 2011
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I used to work with our high school football team quite a bit, and their practices were in full swing. And I was talking with one of the soon to be freshman football players, and he said, "Ron, it seems like just yesterday we were having our first practices back in the summer." And I talked to some seniors, and then they said, "Ron, weren't we just freshmen? How did we get here so fast?"
Another friend's daughter was getting ready to make a decision about college, and he said, "It just seemed like yesterday that she needed my hand even to go anywhere outside the yard." And then I heard a pastor not long ago who was soon to turn 60, and he said, "You know, when I was 16, 60 seemed like forever; seemed like it was so far off. It was just yesterday I was 16 and saying that." I think we all know about this, huh? It's like Billy Graham said when he was asked what the biggest surprise of his life was, and he said, "The brevity of it."
I guess it's somewhere early in our teenage years that we realize that time is limited. Time seems to like hit the accelerator and it never looks back, never slows down. Months and years fly by like months used to fall off the calendars in those old movies. The speed of sound and the speed of light have a companion called the speed of time. And when you realize the speed at which your life is racing by, you don't just watch it happen. You do something about it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Time Is Flying, File a Flight Plan."
Our word for today from the Word of God is about the (here's a new word) "flyingness" of time, and it's in Psalm 90. This is nothing new; it goes back to at least when the psalmist wrote and he said in verse 10, "The length of our days is 70 years, 80 if we have the strength. They quickly pass and we fly away." But in verse 12, he comes up with a flight plan for when time is flying. Here's what he says, "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
He's saying here, "The life that seems so long is really so short." And it's given to us in these things called days. He said, "Our days are flying by." "Teach us to number our days." Now, life seems to come sometimes as sort of this dull routine. The days just sort of slip by and then the days become weeks, and weeks become months, and we don't know where they went. There's no plan; there's no thought. They're sort of this plodding cycle. But this is a call from the Scripture to have no wasted days. "Teach us to number our days aright."
Smart living makes each 24 hours important. Older people wake up one day in their life and wish they could have their days back. And you may still have a lot of years ahead. Well, capture them now. Awaken each morning with an awareness that this 24 hours is a gift not to be wasted, never to be lived again. You say, "Well, I've got school, or work, or traffic, or TV, or meetings, or emails, or errands." That's not the wise way to live.
There are people who need you, opportunities to see God at work in your every day. A chance to learn something you never knew; a chance to give and receive love. And nowhere is time more precious than investing in your family. This is a building block that will either bring you closer to God and His will or farther from it.
"This is the day the Lord has made." Don't just dedicate your life, dedicate this 24 hours. When you fly a plane you don't just cruise wherever you feel like. You file a flight plan of where you're going. As you face time flying by, file a flight plan for that day; seize that day. Don't just let that day happen to you. Pray for it, plan for it, make it count.
Well used days may fly by just as fast, but they will land you where you want to land.