One of the most invaluable intangible commodities we have is time and it is something at times we all wish we had more of.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people regrettably say, “If I only had a little more time, I would have done _.”
Inarguably, time is fleeting and when God calls one of our loved ones home, the first things most people do is appraise the quality time spent or the lack of time spent that family member or friend.
It has been documented and verified that the number 1 request people who have been on their deathbed wished they had was more time. They wished they had more time to do what they should’ve done with the time that was allotted for their lives.
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.”
In this book, she wrote the top 5 regrets she observed as follows:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my family/friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
The Bible makes reference to ‘redeeming the time‘ in both Ephesians 5:16-16 and Colossians 4:5. In both passages, redeeming the time is related to wisdom in how we “walk,” that is, in how we live.
My beloved brothers and sisters, To redeem something means to buy it back, to regain possession of it. Time is a gift from God, and none of us know how much of it we are allotted. Only God knows how much time each of us has on this earth to make decisions that will impact eternity (Psalm 139:16). When God says we should be “redeeming the time,” He wants us to live in constant awareness of that ticking clock and make the most of the time we have.
James 4:14 reminds us that our earthly lives are no more than a fog that appears and then quickly evaporates. Our money and possessions will be given to someone else. Our jobs will be filled by others. Our families may remember us with fondness but will move on with lives that don’t include us. All that remains of our lives on earth is that which was invested in eternity. In the end, all that matters is what we did or did not do to redeem the time (Psalm 102:3; 144:4).
Are you redeeming your time? If not, it’s not too late to start today! It’s not how you start—it’s how you finish that matters most!
4GIVEN 