How Do You Spend Your Time?

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world: Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ:”  Titus 2:11-13

I ran across an article several years ago entitled “How Does Your Life Add Up?”  Someone had calculated how a typical lifespan of 70 years is spent:

Sleep-23 years; Work 16-years; Television viewing-8 years; Eating-6 years; Travel-6 years; Leisure-4.5 years; Illness-4 years; Dressing-2 years; and Religion-6 months.

Remember that this is for a “typical” person.  Apparently the “typical” person has little regard for his or her relationship with the God who created him or her and allowed this life of 70 years, more or less.  This article was written at least 30 years ago.  I think that if someone did a current survey of how folks spend their time, sleep time would probably go down, while the time spent in work, television viewing (or social media interaction), eating (judging by the increase in obesity), travel (measured by the increase in traffic), and leisure would go up.  Hopefully time spent in dealing with illness wouldn’t go up, and time spent dressing would stay the same.  I think that there would be a drastic decrease in “religion” or the worship of and service to the Lord.  The statistics tells us that folks who are denying any form of religion or belief in God are on the increase while church attendance overall is down.  These changes are revealed in the current state of the world.  We do reap what we sow.

I certainly do not want to be thought of as a “typical” person who spends a lot of time on selfish pursuits and only gives some minor “lip service” and a few minutes at random, if any, to the sovereign and holy God of all creation.  I had much rather be known as a person who strives for excellence in the way I live my life, not in an attempt to gain God’s favor, but in gratitude to the One who gave me life and has brought me safe thus far.  I think we all need to check our priorities.