Scripture & Thought

Ephesians 5:16

“Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

Question: In your work or in your play (or whatever you do), are you counting the minutes, or are you making the minutes count?

There is a difference. If you are “counting the minutes,” you are probably bored with what you are doing. If you are “making the minutes count,” employers are looking for you! You will never be without a job.

M. Lincoln Schuster, one of the founders of Simon and Schuster, Inc., was generally known as a global leader in the field of general-interest publishing. In a short essay (entitled “Make the Minutes Count”) Schuster wrote in glowing terms about an older friend named Bernard Berenson, whom Schuster called “the most creative man I know.” Berenson was over 90 years of age when Schuster wrote about him.

Schuster said, “When I saw ‘B.B.’ last he was still unquenchably young at heart, a supreme master of the greatest art of all – the art of living. This is the art of getting 60 minutes from the hour, 24 hours from the day. Never willing merely to add years to his life, he always insists on adding life to his years. He does it by being everlastingly interested in the world around him.”

Schuster went on to say about his friend, “Each minute of his time is dedicated, disciplined, and undistracted. In his tenth decade his agenda of unfinished business is more inspiring than ever.”

At the time he wrote those words, Berenson was working on five books, completing a comprehensive catalog of the Renaissance, “and still enjoying the master fulfillment of getting things done.”

Commenting on the Ephesians 5:16 passage, John Wesley said that believers should “redeem” their time “for the best purposes – buying up every fleeting moment out of the hands of sin and Satan, out of the hands of sloth, ease, pleasure, worldly business – the more diligently, because the present ‘are evil days’.”

The question remains: Are you counting the minutes or making the minutes count?

How you answer that question may determine your destiny. Don’t be satisfied to merely “add years to your life.” Instead, “add life to your years!” The choice is yours.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, you created “time” in the first place. You designed it for every living thing you created. You created it for me, and I thank you for doing so. I confess that I have not always been a good steward of time, but I want to be. Please help me to “redeem my time” in these complex days, for I know evil reigns all around me. Awaken me to the possibilities before me. In the Name of Jesus I pray.

Amen