A New Year's
Perspective
December 30, 2002
Stretching before you, further than the eye can
see, lays the New Year. It consists of 365 Days, 8,760 hours,
525,600 minutes, 31,536, 000 seconds. In the course of the next
year you'll take approximately 8,000,000 breaths, you'll blink
over 11.5 million times, and you'll spend over 100 days
sleeping--assuming you sleep 7 hours a night.
All of these are given. However, there are many
blocks of time, both large and small, that await your decision
as to how they will be spent. If you're an average husband and
father you'll spend more time talking with your fellow employees
than your wife and you'll spend more hours listening to the
radio and watching television than listening to your children.
You'll spend more time thinking about how you can please your
boss than how you can please those closest to you. This isn't
the beginning of a guilt trip--just the reciting of a few well
known facts based on years of research by people who study how
men spend their time.
Of course, none of us can control things like
breathing and blinking. And we must sleep every night to stay
alert and healthy. But we can control who we live for.
Ultimately, on December 31st, 2003, when you reflect on how you
spent the previous year, you'll either smile or frown. If you
decide on December 31st, 2002, to order your life around God and
those who will be crying at your funeral, chances are you'll
smile at the end of the year. Why? Because you'll have spent
time each day alone with God, your wife and your family.
Never forget, a little time each day adds up to a
lot of time over a year. If you spend ten minutes a day with Go
it will add up to 3,650 minutes or sixty hours alone with your
heavenly Father during 2003. If you choose to listen to your
wife 30 minutes a day it will add up to 10,950 minutes or 182.5
hours over the course of the year. The same is true of 30
minutes a day listening to your kids.
You won't become a godly man in one day. And you
won't become a great husband or dad in just 24 hours. But if you
chose to love God and your family one day at a time you'll
discover that over the course of a year you'll become a
different man--a godlier man who loves his wife and children
more than he did a year before.
Don't be deceived into thinking it's meaningless
to number your days. It isn't. And don't kid yourself into
thinking it's easy. It's not. Indeed, the psalmist pleaded with
God for help in this area. In Psalm 39:4 he cried out, "Show me,
O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how
fleeting is my life." In Psalm 90:12 he uttered a similar prayer
but mentioned why he wanted to diligently count every day. He
said, "So teach us to number our days, that we may present to
You a heart of wisdom."
Ultimately, if we're going to live one day at a
time for God and our family, we'll need God to give us a sense
of priority and urgency. And if he does that, we'll give him the
gift of a life lived wisely.
Can you see the New Year stretching out before
you? Don't try to see the end from the beginning. That would be
a waste of effort since you can't see it yet. But you can see
the first day of the year and a few days beyond that. Ask God to
enable you to value those days. And each day that follows--one
day at a time. Plead with him to motivate you to live each day
for those who love you the most and whom you cherish most
dearly. If you do--you'll not only smile on December 31st, 2003,
you'll smile each day along the way.
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