Teach me to number my days

Every season has a sweetness that once passed cannot be tasted again, we yearn to have one more day of that life, like our childhood. We naturally assume that there will always be a tomorrow. Since we are the characters in our own destiny and nobody else can play that role, we come to a need to acknowledge that we surely need to ‘number our days’.

The following verse has been an anchor to me-

“Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” (Ecclesiastes 11:4-6,NIV)

When we consider the time we have in a day, we have some practical tips that we can adopt without any delay:

PLANNING: This takes precedence and we know when we are strategic, we feel we are managers of time, instead of the harrowing thoughts of having lost time. We ourselves can split our tasks into categories as :

● Important and urgent

● Important and non-urgent

● Can wait and be done later

● Not important and non-urgent

When we plan without a deadline, we have a tendency to delay, which makes it most necessary to plan our schedules. It also enables us to refine our work by improving on our past mistakes.

ORGANIZE: We can organize similar kinds of works. For example, our kitchen work may include cooking, cleaning and washing dishes. But, when we are are able to club these together in a definite time, we achieve a lot.

BENEFITS AND MOTIVATION: When we are able to achieve these small tasks in our own time and space, there is surely a self- gratification we all feel. This is regardless of the chaos around us. We benefit ourselves and others.

We will have enemies to our time like laziness and procrastination, but when we follow these few tips, wouldn’t you feel like you are better managers of your time? Great. Now, you can have a self-pat or a treat for yourself.

If each day we take 30 minutes time with God, then it could come down to 30 minutes X 30 days X 12 months = 10,800 minutes alone in a year, and then in 60 years, 10,800 X 60 years = 648,000 minutes. Each minute, each day counts!

Even this day is an opportune moment. We can become more responsible to what has been entrusted to us. In short, it’s not the number of years we live, but how we live it in view of eternity that counts.

But we have hope. Like a sculptor chips off the rock to see the beauty of a sculpture within, we can also begin to see our well invested time begin to bring in beauty into our lives.

Reflective questions-

1. In the process of planning your daily chores, how often you prioritise the demands of the day?
2. Have you ever thought ‘that the little droplets of time that fades away without our knowledge’?
3. Have you ever felt the conviction that you need to spend the time ‘otherwise’?