Solomon had it all and tried it all. He was wealthy enough to afford anything and powerful enough to do anything. He poured his heart and soul into projects, pleasures, and possessions. Solomon was the wisest man ever to live. People came from all around the world to hear him lecture on animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. If you were lucky, he might even sing one of the 1,005 songs he wrote and slip in one of his 3,000 proverbs. But everyone Solomon ruled and wooed has something in common with him. Time was and is the common denominator. Everyone has twenty-four hours in their day. 

Solomon said this early on in his reflective journal: 

Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.

The sun is the marker of time. It separates the day from the night and establishes seasons and years (Genesis 1:14). It rises, sets, and then “hastens to the place where it rises.” It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian or a non-Christian, God makes the sun rise on all of humanity (Matthew 5:45). And time goes fast. We blink, and graduations race from preschool to high school to college. We snap our fingers, and our babies are having their own babies. Before we know it, a full house becomes empty of children, then empty of parents, then sold to another family who starts the cycle all over again.  

This side of eternity, life is a breath. We do the same things over and over again in a world repeating itself over and over again, and then we die, only to be followed by our children who will do the same things in the same way and then meet the same end.¹

Being a Christian doesn’t make time go any slower. God, through the psalmist, exhorts us to “remember how short [our] time is!” (Psalm 89:47). But we live life under the sun with an over-the-sun perspective. Each moment is a gift from God to be used to honor him. We ask God to “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). A Jesus follower desires to make each moment count. 

Reflect on the use of your time. Did your investment of God’s gift honor him? 

Ask God for discernment to use the gift of time wisely.

Ask God to teach you to number your days under the sun so you can live with an over-the-sun perspective.

Father, time is a gift from you. Help us use it in a way that honors you. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

¹ David Gibson, Living Life Backward (Wheaton, Il. Crossway, 2017) 28.