To all the readers of the “Question and Answer” column I send greetings. I am not dealing with a particular question this time, but as we have just crossed the threshold of a new year, I feel impressed to insert here for this time a treatise on TIME. True, when this article appears in the Faith and Victory more than one month of the year will have already passed, and it might be thought by some to be a little late to be giving a New Year’s message. But at the time of writing we have just crossed the line only a few days ago. So let us earnestly consider “Time” its value and importance.
A famous artist was once asked which of his paintings he considered to be the best. His answer was simple and direct: “My next one.” Here was a professional man who felt he possessed the potential of constant and continual improvement and that each production would be better than the one before. This is a grand outlook for life, too. Let us adopt it for ourselves. We have just entered into a new year. Let us look forward by faith to it being our best year yet in serving God and in our spiritual lives. Let us resolve that it shall be, by the grace of God, and labor earnestly to develop the potential within us, and make it our best year of spiritual development and growth.
A year is a distinct segment of time and of our lives. Each year contains 365 1/4 days. Each day is a complete package within itself. Let us learn to live one day at a time. Let us not be foolish in trying to live our life by the year; let us live it by the day. It is very important that we get settled down to dealing with the time at hand and not try to relive yesterday nor live tomorrow in advance. One Greek philosopher said, “Perform thy worst tomorrow for I have lived today.” Jesus warned us very faithfully about getting our days mixed up or intermingled. He taught us to pray in Matthew 6:11: “Give us THIS DAY our daily bread.” Again in Matthew 6:34, He said, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Let us grasp the importance of what Jesus said here. Each day we will have sufficient problems, duties, responsibilities, privileges, and opportunities to keep us busy. It is worrying over the forebodings of the future and lamenting over the mistakes of the past that mar the present and render us less capable and efficient to cope effectively with the situations and problems of today. George McDonald said, “No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourself so. If you find yourself so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future with Him and mind the present.” Let us break this year up into 365 units (days) and face them one at a time. Let us face each day with full confidence in the promise of God’s Word: “…As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Deuteronomy 33:25. Let us face the future in the confidence that God has it in His hands and when we get there He will be there and have everything under control. Let us move forward in this year with optimism, hope, strong faith, and courage. Let us be joyful and jubilant; let us be exuberant and excited in the anticipation of the possibilities each of the days which lie ahead will bring to us. The Psalmist said in Psalm 68:19, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits,…” And again in Psalm 118:24, he said, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Then Ecclesiastes 9:11 says, “…Time and chance happeneth to them all.” Let us believe this, and that as the days come and go we will have our share of “time and chances” right along with all the others; let us keep ready and prepared to seize them and make the most of them as time brings them to us.
But all folks do not do this. How sad but alas, ’tis true. We read in Hebrews 5:12, “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.” These folks were not making the best use of their time and chances, and were not growing and prospering spiritually as they should. But they were the losers when time had passed them by with all its opportunities. This is indeed sad but, alas, how many there are like this. Oh, let us all be awake and alert to grasp those chances and opportunities as they are brought to us on the stream of time, because they will not wait and they may not pass our way again. The chorus of one song says, “Those golden hours will never wait; We must seize them as they come, or forever be too late; Oh, do not wait for something great; Do whatever you find to do and do it right.” Fenelon said, “God, who is liberal in all His other gifts, shows us, by the wise economy of His providence, how circumspect we ought to be in the management of our time, for He never gives us two moments together.” Frederick William Faber said, “The surest way of arriving at a knowledge of God’s eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. Each hour comes with some little fagot of God’s will fastened upon its back.” Legh Richmond said, “There is a time to be born and a time to die, says Solomon, and it is the momento of a truly wise man, but there is an interval between these two times of infinite importance.” This is very true and let us all grasp its import. This intervening time is our lives which we are now passing through and using or wasting as the case may be.
My father used to say to me, “Son, live every day just like it was the last day you had to live.” With the passing of years and as the advancing of age brings me nearer to the end of my life, I value and appreciate that admonition more and more. On Jan. 30th this year, my father will have been gone 34 years; but that admonition is still with me in a very distinct and real way, and comes into focus more clearly and with greater force with each passing year.
There is an old cliche which says, “Never put off until tomorrow what should be done today.” The wisdom of this can be clearly seen. But, alas, there are too many today living by the modern version of “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.” But all who live by this code (and many do) are sure to find themselves loaded up somewhere down the line and unable to cope with an accumulation of situations and problems and will go under. Proverbs 27:1 says, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
