The answer to that question is: the same as everybody else. Each person, for the duration of his life, has sixty seconds each minute, sixty minutes each hour, twenty-four hours each day, and 365 days each year to do what he/she is going to do. That's what time you got! Me too.
Next question: How are you utilizing your time? Are you making the most of it? Are you managing it well, or squandering it? Ben Franklin said, "If you love life, don't waste time, for that is what life is made of." If Ben Franklin, being an unbeliever, could understand the value of time, how much more so should we who know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior? "For to me to live is Christ..." (Phil. 1:21).
A contemporary of Ben Franklin's understood the importance of time even more than he did and consequently accomplished more than Franklin did - at least in light of eternity. This man's name was Jonathan Edwards, arguably the greatest theologian in the history of America. He also preached what is probably America's most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Jonathan Edwards pastored right here in Massachusetts and was greatly used by God in the revivals that swept across New England in the 1730s and 1740s.
Edwards was born in 1703, and seventeen years later he was born again while contemplating 1 Timothy 1:17, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen." While meditating on the marvel of God's Person and the glory due His name that Edwards "began to have a new kind of apprehension and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious ways of salvation by Him." This is what Edwards wrote in his journal, having had the Gospel written on his heart.
Having been miraculously converted, Jonathan Edwards was now committed to glorify and honor God with every fiber of his being. To help himself do this, he crafted over the course of the following year dozens of "Resolutions" which were designed to help him achieve his life's ambition: to glorify God. It's amazing to think that Edwards began writing his famous Resolutions at age 18 - less than a year following his conversion - and completed them before he turned 20.
These Resolutions can be grouped in various categories, which Dr. Steven Lawson has capably outlined in his outstanding book, The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards. One such category was that of Time. In Resolution #7, Edwards vowed,
Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
Realizing that his death may be preceded by the coming of Christ, Edwards later wrote for Resolution #19,
Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.
Clearly, these particular Resolutions were designed to help Edwards steer clear of temptation. As noted by Lawson, "If he [Edwards] cold say that he ought to avoid any activity in his final hour, he would know that he ought to avoid it at any point in his Christian walk.... Living as if he was in his last hour helped him keep sinful things at a distance."
About a year after finishing his Resolutions, Edwards wrote in his journal,
I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. July 8, 1723.
Edwards earnestly wanted to live a life in such a way that he would never lie on his death-bed wishing that he could relive it, knowing that he had wasted it. If we are to live contented lives, we must make the same commitment, resolving to take significant steps now. Like Edwards, we must make the glory of God our number-one pursuit and passion.
What in your life needs to go? What needs to be added? In what ways can you better maximize your time, making the most of every minute, to count for eternity?
May each of us like Moses pray, "Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).