Let’s pretend for a moment.
Your banker calls you with some good news. An anonymous donor has decided to deposit into your account 86,400 pennies each morning for the rest of your life. There is only one stipulation. You must spend all the money the day you receive it. None can be saved and carried over to the next day. What you do not spend, the bank will cancel.
So you smile and begin adding. The 86,400 pennies is $864 each day. That is over $6,000 a week, $315 thousand a year. For the rest of your life. You smile again.
O.K. Pretend time is over. Here is the true picture. Each day our God gives you 86,400 seconds of time. That is 1440 minutes which is one 24 hour day. The stipulation is the same. You must use it all. It can’t be carried to the next day. Someone wrote “Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you want to, but you can spend it only once.”
The Psalmist wrote, “Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Here are some suggestions for 2019:
1) Life is not a dress rehearsal, so live each day fully with joy and purpose. There are no “do-overs”.
2) Live a life of service. We are our best selves when we are good to others. Helen Keller said, “I find life an exciting business and most exciting when it is lived for others.” Jesus said, “The greatest among you is a servant.”
3) Don’t hold a grudge. We should learn to forgive. It is good to have a good memory. It is also good to have a good forgetter. Anger and bitterness consume the container that holds them. “Forgetting those things which are behind and reach for those that are before, I press toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)
4) Keep a sense of humor. Abraham Lincoln was right. “Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Learn to laugh at yourself too. When Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied: “If I had another face, you think I’d be wearing this one?” The Bible says “A merry heart does good like “medicine.”
5) Put 2019 into God’s hands. In 1939 King George VI quoted a poem during his Christmas message.
“I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year. Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be better than light and safer than a known way.”
6) Finally, count all your blessings and remember your dreams.