August 23

Redeeming the time

“Remember how short my time is” (Psa. 89:47).
“Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).

We are all great people, or at least we think so, until we come to Time, but Time makes everybody look small. When the morning comes, it is soon twelve o’clock, and very little done, and the day has soon gone. When Saturday comes it appears to most of us as if Saturday were here two days ago. . . . How small Time makes us! Even our pleasures are measured by Time: “pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb.11:25). We are all very great people, until we place ourselves by the side of Time! The hours are flying over our heads; the days, weeks, months, and years, are gliding silently but swiftly away. A few more sunsets over the dark hills of Time, a few more springs, summers, autumns, winters, and Time will have left us in Eternity!


“Tomorrow,” he promised his conscience,
“Tomorrow I’ll do as I should;
Tomorrow I’ll think as I ought to;
Tomorrow I mean to be good;
Tomorrow I’ll conquer the habits
That hold me from Heaven away”;
But ever his conscience repeated
One word—and one only—“Today.”
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow—
Thus day after day it went on;
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow—
Till Youth like a vision was gone;
Till age and his passions had written
The message of fate on his brow,
And forth from the shadows came Death
With pitiless syllable—“Now.”

Much of life is lost in getting ready to live.

“Make the very most of your time.” (Mof.) Are we really doing this? How much frittering away in selfish ends and wasteful talk! The very word “redeemed” indicates a price to be paid for this. The other translators (Wey. and Rhm.) definitely state “buy.” If investing money you had a chance of, say, 7.5% or 10% in one scheme and only 1% and 2% in others, which way would you act? Then what is yielding the greatest profit now? There is no time for prayer. No, you will not find it, you must take it from something else less vital.—John Harrison,
(successor to C. T. Studd).

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