Number Your Days

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about time. How little of it I seem to have. How everything takes longer than I think it should. Wondering what happened to it—where did the time go?!?

My husband, recognizing my unusually stressed-out behavior, downloaded some mp3′s for me of a series of sermons from Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church in Georgia. The title of the series? The Time of Your Life. The point? How to get the most out of your time.

Wow.  These messages were just what I needed to hear. I highly recommend them. They springboard off of a quote from Moses in the Psalms:

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Let me give you some choice paraphrases and quotes to tempt you, in case you, too, are suffering from this time-related stress. The link above will send you to a web page where you can listen or watch the messages for free. The links below will send you to the pages where you can buy the mp3′s (for $1).

Amidst all the writing, the querying, the procrastinating, the editing, the never-ending waiting in this business, it’s good to lift your head from the computer and get that broader view of life–for your time is your life:

1. Your Days are Numbered “If we live in the light of the fact that our time is limited we’ll make better decisions….There are bookends around our lives.” (Writer’s understand both endings and bookends!)
2. At Capacity How would your day/week/month look different if you prioritized correctly? “Priority of life determines the capacity of your time.”
3. Compounding Minutes “There is cumulative value in investing small amounts of time over a long period of time.” (like exercise….and writing your WIP) We know this, but why don’t we do it? Because we don’t see immediate results–or consequences.
4. When Less is More “Our fully exploited strenghts are of far greater value than our marginally improved weaknesses….a weakness will always be a weakness compared to our strengths”
5. Under the Sun (this link is to the current *free* download, but soon it will move to the archive in the online store) Many of you will recognize this phrase comes from Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon. This message wraps up the series, putting our time into perspective—What is life all about?

And for the musically minded, there is a great song out right now called “Blink” by Revive, an Australian band. The opening lyric? “Teach me to number my days..”

“Blink” on You Tube