October 19

Right use of time

“There is . . . a time to every purpose” (Eccles. 3:1).
“Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9).

When Drexelius was asked by his friend Faustinius how he could do so much as he had done, he answered, “The year has three hundred and sixty-five days, or eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours; in so many hours great things may be done; the slow tortoise made a long journey by losing no time.”
The man who hasn’t the time to do the things that are worth while is probably doing some things that are not.

The length of a life is not to be estimated by the winters over which it has spread. Some lives are brief at seventy, for their record is a blank and dreary vacancy; others are protracted at twenty-five, for a history has been compressed within the space.

“Men live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.”
—W. Morley Punshon.

Have you ever settled anything about your time, whether any of it belongs to God, and if so, how much of it belongs to God? Did you ever sit down and make an honest division with God of your time—I will give God so much every week? John Wesley, a grander man than whom never lived, sat down and divided the twenty-four hours of the day into equal parts, and said, “Eight hours a day I give to sleep and recreation; eight hours I give to my business, and eight hours I give to God.” When I look at Wesley’s life, and see how many sermons he preached, I’m astonished that he had any time to travel; and when I look at the number of miles he traveled on horseback, I’m astonished that he had time to preach; and when I look at the number of books he left behind him, I say, “Well, well, how did Wesley have time for writing and preaching?” And the whole life of that great man, the most laborious life almost of any century, was made successful and extensive because he divided up rightly with God.
—S. Jones.

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