What Will You do With Your New Year?

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

What will you do with the new year you’ve been given?  What goals and aspirations so you have for the next 12 months?  Start a new job? Go to college?  Graduate? Buy a house or a car? Get married? Take on an exciting challenge?  I’ve got a couple of my own in that list.  It’s good to have goals, I think we wander through life without them.  It’s important to look ahead and consider possibilities and options and to sketch out some plans for the future.  That doesn’t mean we’re not walking by faith, God gives us wisdom and vision to guide us through our lives.

But don’t let the “big picture” crowd out the details.  As you approach this new year, don’t forget that you’ve been given 365 individual days which are broken into 8,760 hours. Consider that about 2,920 will be given to sleep, and about the same number at work. That leaves another 2,920 hours of “disposable time,” which you can use any way you choose.  That is generally spread out over several work days and days off.   Certainly there are chores and other responsibilities to be done, yet we still have a good portion of that time left over.

This is where Moses’ prayer in our key verse comes in.  We can use our time to sit numbly in front of a screen, or to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol.  We can fill our minds with trivial accounts of the rich and famous.  We can fritter away those hours with mindless distractions or create things that won’t last.  Or we can spend our time wisely. We can draw closer to our Heavenly Father through prayer and studying His Word.  We can grow in the fellowship of other believers.  We can give our time to Kingdom work. We can invest well in others; serving, mentoring, teaching, caring, loving.  We can use our words to bless and encourage and build up. We can share what the world so desperately needs: love, hope, and peace.

It’s really up to you.  God has granted you a fresh, new year and the possibilities are endless. How will you invest the treasure of time you’ve been given?  With frivolity or with wisdom? With mindlessness or with purpose? Beloved, how will you number your days this year?

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P.S. (from bruce)   Here is a link for reading (or daily listening to) the Bible in a year (available in Spanish, Hindi and Arabic, and Simplified Chinese)…with a 10 minute commentary by teacher preacher Nicky Gumbel…  https://godsmanforever.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/audio-bible-in-a-year-with-10-minute-audio-commentary-by-teacherpreacher-nicky-gumbel-12312016-written-by-bruce-r-mills/