A Lost Hour

When the time changed yesterday, did you get up at 2:00AM and change your clock? If not; why not?  Didn’t you know that Daylight Savings Time officially began then?

Of course, I’m being facetious. Unless you are really a stickler for detail, you probably did what was done at our house. You set your clocks ahead one hour last night before you went to bed.

There is one expression I hear every year as we “spring ahead” and start Daylight Saving Time. Often this practice is described as losing an hour.

To me, there is just something sad about saying that. I don’t like the idea of losing an hour. I understand that, as we “fall back” later this year, we will say that we “gained an hour,” but I still don’t like the idea of losing an hour. 

However, this expression has caused me to do some thinking — and self-evaluating. This expression has caused me to ask myself how many hours I’ve lost without doing anything to the clock? I wonder how often I’ve misused or abused the time I have each day.

In 1982, a board game was released. In 1993, the game was added to the “Games Hall of Fame” by Games magazine. A number of different editions have been produced and multiple millions of the games have been sold. I wonder if the name of that game would characterize how I spend too much of my time?

In case you haven’t guessed, the name of that game is Trivial Pursuit.

I wonder how many hours I’ve lost in trivial pursuit without playing the board game.

According to the English Standard Version of the Bible, there are two passages that admonish us that we need to be “…making the best use of the time” (Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5).  I’m afraid that, if we are honest with ourselves, most of us would agree that we fall short here.

About a century ago, a man by the name of C.T.Studd wrote a poem entitled Only One Life.  You may not be familiar with him or the entire poem, but I’m sure you’ve heard the words that are repeated throughout the poem:

Only one life, ‘twill soon be passed,

Only what’s done for Christ will last.

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Photo background credit: Pete on Creative Commons