If you are 35, you have 500 days to live

Christian counselor, H. Norman Wright, talks about how we spend our time in his book Success over Stress: 12 Ways to Take Back Your Life.  He mentions an article with the eye-catching title that is the same as this post.  Most people would hope that they have more than 500 days to live, but what the article was saying was that if we take away the time we spend at work, caring for our personal hygiene, eating, traveling, sleeping, and the odd chores each of us have to do there are about 500 days in our lives left to do the things we want to do.  Now, I have no way of knowing how the author determined that or if he or she is even correct, but it does remind us of the brevity of our lives.  Ps. 90:12 says, "Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should."

Each of us have 24 hours in a day. At the end of each day those hours are lost forever.  Many of those hours are already committed for such necessities as sleeping, eating, etc., but we can still determine what we will do in the remainder of the time we have each day.  Most of us will choose to invest a portion of those hours in our work, but that still leaves some discretionary time.  The question each of us must determine is how we will use that discretionary time.  Will we spend it or invest it?

Spending time includes such things as watching television.  There is nothing wrong with watching some television, but according to Wright the average American who reaches the age of 72 will have spent 12 years of his or her life watching television.  Is that how you want to spend 1/6 of your life?  Spending time in the 21st century includes the hours we spend on social media and on the computer, and for some people that is an enormous amount of time.  Wright tells us that the average American will spend eight months of hir or her life opening junk mail and another two years talking on the telephone.  I know some who will spend far more than that on the telephone!  He mentions several more ways we spend time, but this is enough for you to get the picture.  When someone says he or she doesn't have the time to do something that usually isn't true.  They simply decide to spend their time doing other things.

Investing time is far different than spending time.  Investing time includes spending time with family and friends making memories that will last far longer than we will.  We invest time when we read a good book that helps us grow as individuals or take a class that challenges our thinking.  We invest time when we spend it with a child helping them explore and learn new things about their world.  We invest time when we reach out to those who need to know Jesus Christ in a personal way.  Of course, we invest time when we spend it with God in Bible reading, worship, and prayer.  Spending time is doing things for the moment; investing time leaves a legacy and makes a difference in the lives of people.

How will you use the 24 hours God gives you today?  Will you spend it or invest it?  BTW- investing it will help reduce the stress that many of us feel each day, and that is why Wright wrote the book.