Ok, math time. Try to follow along.
There are 24 hours in a day that means there are 168 hours
in a week.
If you work a normal 40 hours a week, that leaves 128 hours
in a week to do whatever we want.
It’s recommended that we have 8 hours of sleep a
night, that’s 56 hours a week, which leaves us with 72 hours a week.
You have to eat. Let’s say you eat three meals a day,
breakfast, lunch and dinner with an accumulating time of 3 hours. (That includes
prep and cooking time) That’s 21 hours a week, which now leaves us with 51 hours.
A study finds the average American watches five hours of
television a day. That seems a little high to me, so let’s knock that down to 4
hours a day, which is 28 hours a week which leaves us with 23 hours.
Let’s assume you go to church on Sunday mornings and let’s
assume you go to Sunday school. Let’s also assume you don’t go to Sunday night
or Wednesday night church. That means you spend, roughly, 2.5 hours at church a
week.
That leaves us with 20.5 hours a week to do whatever we want. Oh wait we forgot something, social media. The average American spends up to six hours a day on social media. That's 42 hours a week which leaves us with a -21.5 hours a week.
Essentially, when we wake up on Sunday morning we are already in the whole for the week. Which means we have to make adjustments to fit everything into our daily routines. We could spend less
time sleeping one day, more time working another or less time eating, This is a pretty accurate account of where people spend their time.
When asked what is the greatest commandment Jesus responded “You
shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Do our lives reflect this commandment or reject it? Now you
may say, 'woah bro, I am not rejecting anything Christ said.' But aren't you? If you're life doesn't reflect this commandment aren't you saying you reject it because you don't see the importance of living it out on a daily basis?.
We prioritize our lives by what we are most passionate about
or what is our greatest desire. Whatever we put at the top of that list
receives the most attention while second on that list will suffer because we
put more time and energy into number one. Number three suffers even more because it gets
what is left after one and two get theirs.
We keep going until eventually we run out of time or energy.
So if you have 10 priorities in life, 5-10 will suffer the most because you may
not get to them in a week or maybe two or three.
If we truly love God with all of our heart and all of our
soul, is 2.5 hours a week enough? Would your spouse be OK with just spending
2.5 hours a week with you? Would your kids?
At the beginning of this New Year evaluate your time and
your priorities. How can you make God number one on your list? How can you give
Him the time He deserves?
