This weekend marks the end of daylight savings, when we turn the clocks back an hour and enjoy the thought that Sunday will have an extra hour in the day. For many it will mean knowing that they can stay up a bit later Saturday night without having to worry about getting up on Sunday morning. There will be others who see it as an opportunity to get some extra work in. And there will certainly be many who just want to enjoy the benefit of an extra hour of rest.
Frankly, I don’t think that many of us will spend the extra time thinking about the significance of having an extra hour in a day. When we are just cruising through life, and are accustomed to having these adjustments from the daylight savings time program, we just enjoy having the extra hour in the fall while we lament losing an hour in the spring. Yet it is very likely that there will come a time in our lives when we would do almost anything to have just one more hour.
To have just one more hour with a parent or spouse that has passed away. To have just one more hour holding a young child in your arms. To have just one more hour surrounded by the people that you love. To have just one more hour able to experience life without any sort of infirmity. To have just one more hour of your life before you made a devastating mistake.
There are things that we need to be doing in our lives right now that we will dearly regret not doing at some point later in our lives – things that would be a fantastic use of an extra hour in our day. But most of us won’t do that, and when we come to the end of our lives, we will realize that we have only ourselves to blame for not seeing the reality that we won’t always have a little more time to do the things that we have been putting off. Of those things, the most significant regret will be having not taken the time to get right with God. How many will find themselves before Him, only to realize that they never used the time that they had been given to make amends with Him? At that moment, far too many will realize how important having just one more hour would have been for them, but at that point it will be too late.
Proverbs 27:1 warns us against boasting about tomorrow, as we don’t know what a day will bring. Perhaps you have heard that sentiment expressed in a slightly different manner, that tomorrow is promised to no one. We all know this to be true, but we typically don’t think that it is true for us. We don’t notice the disconnect, and because of that, we don’t realize the preciousness of one more hour.
This Sunday, you will have one more hour to do with what you will. However, if this message meant anything to you, hopefully you won’t wait until Sunday to do something truly important that you have been putting off. Take the time now to get things right.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron