Our time is so precious. Every hour, every minute, every second that goes by, is time that we can not get back. We can not rewind our day and do it differently. We can never get back a single moment that passes us by. And one day our time is going to run out. Jesus is going to call each one of us home at some point and it may be a lot sooner than we think. So it is very important that we spend our time wisely while there is still time.

If Jesus were to call you home right at this moment would you be able to leave this earth peaceful and satisfied with what you have done with life and how you spent your time? Or would you be filled with regrets, should haves and could haves? I think that it would be a terrible thing if we got to the end of our life and had nothing but a bunch of regrets, wishing that we could go back and change things or had more time to tie up lose ends. The only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to wisely invest in our time that we do have.

There are a lot of things that cause us to waste our precious time. And, sadly, I think that we do not realize some of the things that waste our time the most. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Anger. It is one that trips a lot of us up. Being angry about something isn’t going to change it. Getting ourselves all worked up is not going to undo what has already been done. It causes us to spend our time unhappy, without peace and contentment, we waste a lot of energy, give ourselves a headache, and end up acting in a way that we later feel bad about. Anger is a time stealer.

Worry. Worrying about something is a total waste of time. It is not going to change anything if we sit around stressing ourselves out, thinking about every possible outcome. We can not control every situation and we can not predict the future so worrying about it does us no good at all.

Procrastination. Talk about a time stealer. If we know that we need to do something and we keep putting it off we are wasting our time. We spend that time building up dread and gloom, discontentment, dissatisfaction, and it steals our joy. When we keep putting something off we will end up making ourselves feel some type of way towards ourselves because we know that we should be doing it and we are wasting our time. We end up with the “I should haves” at the end of night which interrupts a good night’s rest. We are left with regret if we end up running out of time to do what we keep putting off. I think that procrastination is one of the greatest ways that we waste our time that can have devastating effects on us. By putting things off until “later” we miss out on good conversations, quality time with family, fun times with friends, dream jobs, finished projects, accomplishments, a good night’s rest, a peaceful heart, organized surroundings, and much more. With procrastination, many times “later on” never comes.

Excuses. Now this is something that we are all good at, and it uses our time, but not wisely. Do you realize how much energy you spend coming up with excuses. We use a lot of brain activity trying to come up an excuse for our actions or lack of. I once heard someone say that an excuse is a reason stuffed with a lie. And it is. Instead of handling business we come up these clever, good sounding excuses to explain away ourselves. Much like procrastination, excuses cause us to be unhappy, discontent, and dissatisfied with life and ourselves.

Control. Trying to control people and situations that we have no control over is wasting our time. No matter how hard we try we can not make people act, think, or feel the way that we want them to. We can not control how every situation turns out. But we can control ourselves and how we choose to spend our time. It is a complete waste of time trying to control something that you can never have control of.

These are just a few things that we can waste our time doing. Complaining, bickering, running from the truth, trying to always get our way, and trying to please everyone all the time are some other ways.. There are many more but hopefully these few examples express my point well enough that you get what I’m saying. We only have a certain amount of time on this earth and unfortunately we do not know how much of it we do have. Our time could be up 5 seconds from now or we may have 50 more years. We need to use what amount of time that we do have left investing it in living our best life, through and for Jesus.

Each one of us have a destiny that God intends for us. He has created each one of us for a great purpose and he wants us to enjoy our lives while fulfilling that purpose. If we walk around wasting our time instead of using it to invest in a better, brighter tomorrow we will never be happy, content, and satisfied.

What can you do to invest in your tomorrow? What ways are you wasting your time and how can you change it around to use it wisely? Remember that each moment that passes is a moment that you can never get back. Each minute that passes by is one less minute that you have left on this earth. What do you need to invest your time in that will make it to where when Jesus calls you home you will be able to go in peace, completely satisfied, and with no regrets?