“Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” Ephesians 5:16 NIV

I remember sitting in my car one evening waiting for a red light to change, and thinking about all the things I still had left on my to do list that day. I was imagining how nice it would be to have a few extra hours added to the day so I could finally get everything done.

At that moment, the Holy Spirit impressed upon my heart that, here I was asking for more hours in my day, when I wasn’t even maximizing the time that I already had. With that thought, I had to stop and take a long, hard look at exactly how I was managing my time every day.

We always hear people say, time is precious. We hear them say, you can never get it back once it’s gone. At the end of many lives: rich, poor, black, white, young, old; the one commodity that everyone longs for and no-one can give them is time. But do we treat it as the gift it truly is?

Think about the way we treat things like gold, money, power etc. We hold on to it and cherish it, since for many it’s so hard to come by, and it can be gone in an instant. The funny thing is that, we can accumulate all of these earthly possession again with hard work and diligence; but time, once it’s gone it’s gone. So doesn’t that make it more precious that all the rest?

I don’t know about you, but everyday I look around me, and I wonder how much longer we have here on this earth. I’m not trying to sound like a doomsayer, but there are days when I feel like we’re literally living through Ephesians 5:16. “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil…” The NLT version, beginning from verse 15 says, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.“

So I ask myself the question “Am I making the most of every moment available to me? Am I sharing Christ and His Word with others? Being an inspiration or blessing to the ones who truly need it? Is my life a beacon of light and hope to those around me? What about you? I believe that we can no longer live every day like, “business as usual“, because every opportunity wasted or squandered is one lost forever.

Even if we were to somehow recreate the exact same scenario and have all of the same circumstances set in place, the moment would never be the same as the one we lost. And this is the reason why the verse above admonishes us to make the most of the opportunities that come our way. We are, none of us, promised tomorrow. We’re not even promised the next few minutes. “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” James 4:14 (NIV). All we have to work with is the now, and we should make it count every day.

And let us also be wary of those little things that suck up our time without us realizing it. They’re different for all of us, but we all have them. So many things that pull us in different directions and vie for our time and attention; throw in technology and social media and it’s like time wasting on steroids. If you’re not on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, there are video games, if that’s not your cup of tea, your cellphone is a treasure trove of wonder, with games, puzzles and music that appeal to just about everyone: the intellectual, the artist, the gardener, the interior designer, the music enthusiast, and the list goes on.

And yes, some of these things are great outlets for relieving stress, but you have to admit that we sometimes get carried away with how long we sit there and indulge ourselves. The devil is very cunning, he won’t try to get us with the big things that he knows we’ll spot a mile away, it’s the simple things like these that take up more time in our lives that they should, that can become a problem. Prioritizing our lives and schedules to make more time for the Lord’s work is essential, and there are some days when we’re going to have to tear ourselves away from the many distractions around us.

The day is coming when we are going to have to give an account for our lives. Not just for the things we did, but for the things that we failed to do because we were too busy. Too busy with things that were of no value whatsoever in furthering the Gospel or the Kingdom, as meaningful as those things were.

At the end of our lives, we should want the time we spent here on earth to matter. Regardless of what our status was while we were here, and how many people applauded us for our great deeds; it’s only what was done for Christ that will be counted in the end. When it’s all said and done, may we be able to confidently say like Jesus, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do .” John 17:4 (KJV)