Make Today Count!

It is interesting that just yesterday I was thinking about a lighthearted dialogue my wife and I often have when she will say, "We are getting old."  And I will quickly respond, "Who is we?   Do you have a mouse in your pocket?"   And, this morning I received my "Guidelines Daily Commentary On Living" eNewsletter from Dr. Harold Sala.   What is his commentary subject?   TIME!   How appropriate.

I guess I am like the old farmer who replied when his wife asked why he never told her her loved her anymore, "I told you I loved you the day we got married.  If I ever change my mind, I will tell you."  I suppose I could rephrase that to say, "If I ever find myself getting old, I will tell you."

But, just by coincidence, last night I was thinking about our frequent dialogues and recalled two parenthetical statements from the past.  In 1963 I worked at Ramo Wooldridge (RW which later became TRW) helping setting up a department to test the first militarized mini-computer, the AN/UYK-1.  A coworker, Don Cook, laughed as he told us about asking his grandfather who was 70 years old, "Papa, how old were you when your lost interest in sex?"   And his grandfather replied, "Son, you will have to ask someone much older than me."

And on the other side of that parenthetical pause I recalled seeing actor/comedian George Burns on television when he was approaching 100 years of age.  Burns quipped, "Yes, I still talk about sex.  At my age that is as close as you can get."

But, all humor aside, Dr. Sala makes a strong point in his commentary when he writes:   "God has given you today to make preparation for eternity.  It's all part of His gracious goodness.  Take time to get to know God, to love Him, and to use this day to glorify Him.  Make today count."

If you are not yet a believer and you are not sure where you will spend eternity - today is the most important day of your life.   Why do I say that?  Well, today you can decide that "by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 2:8) - you will turn from following the secular world and do a 180 degree turn to believe, receive, and follow Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior (John 1:12) - assuring your eternal life in Christ (1 John 5:12).   

If you are a believer, but still have loved ones or friends who have not yet believed - today is a very important day in your life.  Why do I say that?   Because if you do not tell those loved ones and friends about Jesus Christ and the glorious gift of eternal life He is offering them - those loved ones and friends could slip into eternity without Christ.  That would be eternal hell.  And, you do not want that for them.

Don't let yourself or your loved ones and friends wait until tomorrow to believe and receive His "paid in full" eternal pardon.   Don't decide to wait until tomorrow to tell them how much He loves them and wants them to spend eternity in the presence of God.

Don't wait for tomorrow to share Jesus Christ with those loved ones and friends.  For today is all we have; we are not promised tomorrow.  The past is gone - tomorrow may never come - today is all we have that is certain.   As Dr. Sala tells us in his commentary, "Make today count."

TIME
By Dr. Harold J. Sala
Guidelines International

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart.  The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."  Job 1:21

Victor Borge, the renowned pianist, once told a friend that he could tell time by his piano.  The friend wasn't convinced so Borge proceeded to prove his point.  He immediately began playing a resounding march.  In only moments there was a noisy banging on the wall and a voice on the other side screamed, "Stop that noise!  Don't you know it's 1:30 in the morning?"

Borge may be able to tell time by his music, but he can't stop time.  Only God can do that.  Have you ever noticed that time is like an unending river, and once your craft is launched on it, there is no turning back, no stopping it?  Like a river which may wind through a meadow, there are seasons in our lives when it seems that time moves very slowly.  Then there are other times when it seems that the craft of our lives is carried faster and faster through the turbulence of white water rapids.  And more than anything else, we would like to slow things down - just for a little while.  But we can't.

Mario Andretti was like that.  Remember the famed Italian race car driver?  As he talked with reporters before driving his final Indianapolis 500 at the age of 54, he said, "It's not my fault that the years go by.  If I could make a deal with somebody and buy five or six years of this life, I would."  Think of it - trading his millions for just a few more years of peak performance racing.

He couldn't buy time, and neither could one of the world's richest, if not the richest, woman in the world.  As she lay on her death bed, the best doctors in the world at her side trying to save her life, Queen Victoria, whose British Isles were at the peak of their glory, cried out, "My kingdom, my kingdom for an inch of time."  A strange thing - this entity that we call time.  Scientists, philosophers, and theologians strive to understand it, yet at the very time they ponder it, all of them are controlled by it.

I can tell you what you already know:  that if you don't use it, you lose it.  I can also remind you that the farther you travel on the river of time, the faster it seems to carry you.  We talk about time but can actually do little about it.  This side of eternity, time is a fixed commodity, and when it's gone, it's gone.  God trades neither money nor kingdoms for more of it.

The only thing we can really do about time is to learn to use the moment, to take advantage of what lies within your grasp.  The sad thing is that so often when there is a rainy day, people are distraught because they cannot go somewhere or do something.

If there is any wisdom acquired in aging, it surely must include the importance of using time wisely, of saying what you meant to say while the person you love can still hear those words, of writing the letter you have been intending to write while a friend can yet read it.

I used to wonder how just God is in fixing a person's eternal destiny based on such a short period of perhaps 70 or 80 years, yet we are such creatures of habit that few of us would really change our lifestyles should we live centuries beyond the biblical three-score-and-ten or 70 years.

God has given you today to make preparation for eternity.  It's all part of His gracious goodness.  Take time to get to know God, to love Him, and to use this day to glorify Him.  Make today count.

Resource reading: Job 2:1-10.

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In summary, God, Dr. Sala, and I urge you to Make today count.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill