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

People are very creative.  They get great ideas all the time.  New products, new methods, new projects.  These nudges grab our attention, our interest, fill our needs, and yet often we fail to act on them.

There’s an old saying that necessity breeds invention.  There’s nothing like needing something you can’t find to get your creativity flowing on creating it!  Yet even these nudges are often hampered by our failure to act.

We tell ourselves, when I have time, I’ll do that.  Or I’ll put it down for my next project.  Or I’m so overwhelmed right now, I can’t possibly add one more thing to my schedule or my life.

And so our great idea falls dormant until we again feel the nudge or someone else acts on a similar nudge and we’re too late.

The problem with someday is we have no guarantee we will be here for it.  We aren’t guaranteed today, for that matter.  Which means it’s probably a good idea to prioritize how we spend our time and what we wish to do with our lives.

Everyone is busy earning a living and caring for family and home and the like.  Of course, those things take top priority.  But we all can eek out a few minutes here and there, an hour here and there.  We make time for things that matter to us.  We get up a little earlier, go to bed a little later.  We multi-task during lunch breaks.

I once had an author friend who wrote at lunch time and on her commute from work to home and home to work.  She wrote several books a year this way, with a handheld recorder and she later transcribed.  She was married, two children, and worked a demanding full-time job.  But she had the heart of a writer and was determined to do it also.  She did because she didn’t wait.  She wrote when she could, and she’s written a great deal.

My point is, as the Psalmist wrote, our days are numbered.  That’ not a fatalistic comment, it is a fact, and if we bear it in mind as we plan our days, we’re exercising wisdom.  

Our personal resources are finite—time and energy.  We all require down time, too, and we shouldn’t trivialize the importance of it.  That too is exercising wisdom.  

It also makes it clear that we should think about what we do with our time and energy.  That we are exercising a heart of wisdom so that we do and accomplish what we most want or need to do and accomplish.

It seems to me that in doing so we will live a life of fewer regrets—and more accomplishments.  That sounds appealing to me, so when inspiration strikes, explore it.  Spend a few minutes here and there checking it out.  If you decide to invest your time—read that: part of your life—into it, give it what priority you can.  Ten minutes or an hour per day.  Something so that you don’t fall into the ‘failure to act’ trap.

What I’m suggesting here doesn’t collide with waiting on God.  We seek direction and guidance from Him.  Sometimes He answers immediately, and sometimes we must wait a bit.  In those circumstances, we wait, but we continue to explore.  God often answers prayers in our explorations…

Blessings,

Vicki Hinze