Imagine there is a bank that deposits $86,400 into your account each morning. But there's a catch—it carries over no balance from day to day, so you lose every dollar you don't spend.

What would you do? You'd spend every cent, of course!

But each of us has just such a bank. Its name is time. Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance; it allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow.

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success. The clock is running. Will you make the most of the time you've been given?

Does time matter that much?

Is time—a little or a lot—all that important? Consider the following:

To realize the value of one year,
ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of one month,
ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of one week,
ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of one day,
ask a daily-wage laborer with several children's mouths to feed.

To realize the value of one hour,
ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of one minute,
ask a person who missed the train.

To realize the value of one second,
ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of one millisecond,
ask a person who won a silver medal
at the Olympics.

The anonymous author of these words helps us realize just how important time is.

Jesus Christ told us to be careful how we handle our time, asking, "Are there not twelve hours in the day [the daylight portion of the 24-hour cycle]? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of the world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him" (John 11:9-10).

And the apostle Paul felt it necessary to remind the Christians in Ephesus that they ought to be "redeeming [buying back] the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16; compare Colossians 4:5).

Time: It's what our lives are composed of. Yet in this busy modern world it has become all too easy to let time, the stuff of life, run away from us. E-mails, new software, multiple television channels, cell phones and all the other products of the technological revolution that were supposed to have simplified and enhanced the quality of our lives seem to have conspired to strip us of the time needed for the really important things of life.

What are some of the important things that should occupy our time? How does God tell us to use our time? Here's a checklist of the truly important activities that should be included in our day.

Prayer: Communicating with God

King David once told his Creator, "O God, you are my God; early I will seek You" (Psalm 63:1). He also disclosed that he regularly prayed to God at least three times per day: "Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice" (Psalm 55:17).

The top priority in our lives should be to acknowledge our Creator and Sustainer, the One who gives us every breath of air we breathe and every morsel of food we eat. Prayer—the deep, heartfelt, regular prayer modeled by Jesus Christ Himself, and by the apostles and prophets—is one of those activities that can all too easily be pushed aside, and even out of our lives, if we allow it.

It's good to study the prayers of the great servants of God as recorded in the Bible. If we do that, we will probably be struck by one interesting feature of many of those prayers—they were long!

In fact, they were sometimes very long! Check Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9:3-19, and Ezra's prayer in Ezra 9:5-15, to get a feel for how lengthy and detailed were the prayers of these men of God. Theirs weren't the "Sorry, God, I have to go now; I'll talk to you later" variety of prayer. Nor were they the "Please bless everything" type of prayer.

These biblical models of prayer depict men and women of God who talked at length, and in detail, with their Creator about their praise for Him, the needs of other servants of God and the needs of the work of God. When appropriate (and it's just about always appropriate!) they confessed their own sins and those of their community.

Their prayers weren't disrupted by phones going off and other interruptions. Theirs are the model for the kind of intense, personal prayer time so sorely needed in our modern world, but so easily neglected (or lost).

Study of the Word of God

"My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word," wrote the psalmist (Psalm 119:148). Here he talked about another essential use of our time—studying the Word of God, the Holy Bible. Here's another activity for which we need to make room in our busy lives, but which all too easily gets pushed aside.

Note what the author did: He didn't just read the Bible. He meditated on the Word of God. This suggests a man who read, studied and took time to think over the implications of what he read—someone who asked such penetrating questions as "What does this tell me about God and His greatness?" and "What does this tell me about how I must live my life to be in harmony with the will of my Creator?"

It's been said that meditation is to Bible study as digestion is to eating. If we eat lunch in a fast-food restaurant or a sandwich shop, we may jump up shortly after that last bite and rush off to our next activity. But on those rare occasions when we eat in a quality restaurant, our enjoyment is enhanced by taking time to savor the food and properly digest it.

So it is with this most essential of daily activities. We must study the Bible, but not in haste. As we do so, we should meditate, savoring the Word. Good digestion makes for good health, just as unhurried meditation contributes to our spiritual health. We ought not to run off and suffer indigestion. We need to take the time to digest our spiritual food too.

Fasting: Understanding our need for God

From time to time, those who have committed their lives to God and Jesus Christ find that another activity is essential to spiritual growth. It may not be our favorite activity, as it can be uncomfortable, but it is much needed.

That activity is fasting. Fasting is the practice of going without any food or drink for a period of time, usually a day, to draw closer to God. Notice Jesus Christ's words to His disciples: "Moreover, when you fast . . . But you, when you fast . . ." (Matthew 6:16, 17). Note that He didn't say, "If you fast . . ." He said, "When you fast," clearly expressing His expectation that those who would follow Him would indeed fast from time to time.

But how easy it is to let the needed activity of fasting go by the board! There's always some commitment, some activity, that prevents us from fasting—or at least so it seems. It requires some determination to set aside a day for fasting and extra prayer. Yet when we do that, this short-term exercise in "afflicting our souls" (to use another biblical term for it) pays rich dividends in spiritual growth and answered prayer.

Another priority: Family time

In speaking of the kind of fast that God expects, the prophet Isaiah was inspired to declare that we should not "hide" ourselves from our own families (Isaiah 58:7). This leads us to perhaps the most important use of our time as far as other human beings are concerned. We must spend adequate quality time with our families.

According to a recent survey done in Britain, more than 90 percent of children want more time with their fathers. Three times as many children said that caring, rather than breadwinning, is their father's most important job.

The same survey indicated that 9 out of 10 girls would rather the father of their children be caring than rich, and 88 percent of the boys said they wanted to be dads when they grew up. Over half of those children surveyed indicated they felt parenthood should be taught in schools.

In a world all too often obsessed with making money, these results tell us something we should know: The emotional well-being of our families should be given a higher priority than making that extra dollar (or euro, or pound). Time spent with the family is an excellent investment.

The Bible exhorts fathers, "Provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4, King James Version). Husbands are exhorted to "dwell with [their wives] with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Peter 3:7).

Dwelling with one's spouse and nurturing and admonishing our children are activities that require time. They can't be rushed. Are we setting aside adequate time to spend with our loved ones?

We mustn't neglect other important uses of our time. When it comes to family, we must also maintain the home with work around the house and chores. And our regular job will probably take up the single biggest portion of our time. We should also give adequate time to education to prepare ourselves for the future and that we might better provide for our families.

Time to relax and recharge

Finally, there is one more critical use of time that may seem paradoxical after what you've read so far. It's time for relaxation—down time, time to employ a real change of pace that rests and rejuvenates us. We should do this on a regular basis, since burnout helps no one. If we're going to be productive during our time of work, we also need to enjoy some time to relax and unwind.

Solomon, in his wisdom, wrote that there is a time to laugh and a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:4), as well as a time to work hard and push oneself. For this reason most employers give their employees much-needed vacation time. It is time well-earned, and it needs to be used, if only to maintain our productivity in the times when we do work.

I recall the comment made by the wife of a colleague of mine when I was teaching at a small college in Texas. She commented about her husband that when they went away on vacation, it took him an entire day just to relax and unwind. Sadly, we can often be too intense about our work and find it hard to remove our foot from that accelerator of life, to slow down. At times it may take longer than a day for one truly under stress to recuperate or adjust to a change of pace.

Those who are involved in creative work know the need for relaxation and recreation. Trying to force creativity out of oneself rarely works. That essential creative spark usually kindles itself at unexpected moments, when we are relaxed and not feeling pressure. Perhaps this is why the Gospels record the fact that Jesus Christ at times felt a need to get away from the crowds and be alone. It's the quiet, unhurried time that stimulates our creativity.

Time: It's the essence of life. If we use it wisely, we can become better, more productive, more God-fearing people. We can love others more effectively. We can remember to play a little and to stay young at heart. And we can learn the keys to eternal life as described in the holy Word of God. GN