You might call me a “time-keeper” if you saw me everyday. I constantly check the clock and make daily use of my planner and wall calendar. For some reason time bears a great weight on me. I hate being late for anything and easily get irritated when someone else arrives after the appointed time.
And yet, a few years ago I started to realize that this time-obsession was getting out of hand. I chose to stop wearing watch, quite purposefully. I’ve cut back drastically on how much I put in my planner, though it still gets regular use.
I came across something that struck this time-keeper in the gut:
“It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life.”
Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ
Am I spending this life well when I get all tense and annoyed? Am I spending more time planning for the next day’s events rather than living fully present in this day?
The longer I live, the faster time seems to move along. In elementary school it took FOREVER for Christmas to arrive! Now, it feels like we just celebrated Christmas and it’s already September!
Yes, many days can seem long in the trenches of busy-ness that comes with raising my now-preschoolers. But I look back and genuinely wonder where the last month went! It was swept away with the day-to-day activities…with the laundry and groceries and cooking and bills and routines…the days gather together and race past me.
And the more I consider my bent towards living in the “next” rather than in the “now”, I can better see that this leaves me living each day in survival mode as I plan for a better “next”.
“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12
My prayer today is this: that God will help me realize how fleeting is my life, how precious is every moment so that I can better see His work around me and hear His voice speaking. I hope that in “numbering my days” I will place greater emphasis on the important things rather than merely the urgent things. I long to leave behind a legacy of a well-spent life that was invested in knowing, loving, and serving God and others.
What does living a well-spent life look like to you?
