Make Your Days Count

When I was in college, I had a conversation—or rather a series of conversations—with my good friend John about time management. Not time management in the sense of business productivity or classroom schedules, but time management in light of eternity.

I had an idea for a journal (this was pre-iPhone, so “app” wasn’t in my vocabulary). The concept was simple, though admittedly tedious: a daily planner broken into fifteen-minute blocks. Each block would be categorized by how I spent that time—prayer, study, leisure, service, and so on. At the end of the day, you could literally see where your time had gone.

The idea was good. The execution, as John wisely pointed out, was… impractical. But the heart behind it was rooted in a desire that came from Psalm 90:12, which says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

If you could see a visual representation of where your time is going, wouldn’t it change the way you think about your daily choices?

Time Is Short

What I was trying to grasp in college is what Moses was teaching in this psalm: Our time is short, and what we do in this brief space on earth echoes in eternity. C.S. Lewis once wrote in a 1940 letter to his friend Mary Neylan:

“If there is an eternal world and if our world is its manifestation, then you would expect bits of it to ‘stick through’ into ours. We are like children pulling the levers of a vast machine of which most is concealed. We see a few little wheels that buzz round on this side when we start it up — but what glorious or frightful processes we are initiating in there, we don’t know. That is why it is so important to do what we’re told.”

We are children at the controls of something vast, unaware of how far-reaching our actions may be. That is why, as Lewis said, obedience and faithfulness matter so deeply. David echoes Moses’ wisdom in Psalm 39:4–5:

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”

Life is short. Every breath counts. However, this shouldn’t be a terrifying image, but an encouraging image of the opportunity we have been given to serve God’s glory through our lives here on earth.

Marking Our Time

I’ve seen wall calendars designed to visualize this very truth. They show an average lifespan as a grid of weeks or months, and you mark off the ones you’ve already lived. The result is a stark reminder of how little time remains in the hourglass.

I’m forty years old. If I live to the current U.S. average lifespan of about 78 years, I’m already more than halfway through my life. I can’t change the past, but I can look at the future in the light of eternity.

Every day, I’m pulling those levers and making choices that shape not just my life here, but the life to come.