Funny thing about time: Every one of us knows we have only twenty-four hours a day, yet we try our best to think of ways to make each day last longer or become shorter to suit our preferences. While the clock ticks out the same number of minutes at the same rate every day, we try to save them like pennies in a jar, so we can spend them someday somewhere else, whenever we choose.

    Not a bad idea, but it just doesn’t work that way. Many of us cannot grasp the truth that the time allotted to us on this earth is sufficient for all the Lord has planned for us to do. We don’t need one minute more or one minute less to get the job done: the job of living.

    When I was a child, our family had a chiming clock that had been handed down through the generations and was a well-loved treasure. On the hour, of course, it would chime out the time, and by it we kept on schedule with meals and departures and awakening and bedtime. Many nights, from our respective bedrooms, each of us would call out the number of chimes until the last one stopped.

Our greatest fear is running out of time.

    One night, after we had all gone to bed about midnight, the clock began to gong and we started our audible ritual: "Nine...ten...eleven...twelve." Just as we closed our mouths after shouting out TWELVE! the clock struck thirteen. We could hardly believe our ears. “Where did that come from?” I wondered as we all laughed heartily from our beds. Then, almost in perfect unison, we called out: “It’s later than you think!”

    For most of us, that’s the problem: our greatest fear is running out of time. So we hurry though life trying desperately to get everything done: working overtime, eating fast food in the car, racing down the freeway. We’ve gone from The One Minute Manger to The One Minute Mother to One Minute Wisdom. Life itself encourages us to hurry. I can do my laundry twice as fast as my grandmother did; I can handle correspondence that took my mother hours with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. And yet, I seem to have less time than they did. What has happened?

    In our quest to save time, we’re losing something. I thought the other day about how my grandparents valued time. It seemed they had time for everything in life that was important, because they took time to live. They treasured the biblical injunction that proclaims. “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)

    Today, this very day, why don’t you think of something that takes extra time to do and do it. Do it for yourself.

    Don’t wait for another time. Rejoice in this day and be glad! Tonight, your clock could strike thirteen.