"ONE MINUTE PRAYERS
What is the most useful thing you can do with one minute?
We’ve heard a lot lately of an Old Testament saint named Jabez. For Jabez, the answer was prayer. Hidden in the midst of an uneventful genealogy in First Chronicles we are given the prayer of a man of whom we know very little. We are simply told that Jabez was an honorable man, above the others of his day who prayed a simple prayer for God to bless him and enlarge his borders or his influence for God.
His prayer was only one verse long. Yet we are told that God was pleased to answer this request. While there are times when God will call us to extended seasons of prayer, we often miss opportunities to be blessed by one minute “Jabez” prayers in the midst of our busy days.
Why not take a moment right now and offer to the Lord a word of prayer that He would enlarge your sphere of influence today for His Name’s sake.
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"A poet wrote:
It isn’t the thing you do dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone
That gives you a bit of a heartache
At setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.
For life is all to short, dear,
And sorrow is all to great,
To allow for slow compassion
That waits until too late;
And it isn’t the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone
Which gives you a bit of a heartache
At the setting of the sun.
That poem captures the essence of the sin of omission. We know the Bible teaches us to help and encourage others. We desire to do right, but poor time management leaves us with no time to fulfill those desires.
Take a moment right now and think of how you can demonstrate the love of Christ to someone right where you are. Don’t put it off. Do it now, and you’ll redeem the time.
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"In 1895 a young lady named Amy Charmichael set sail from the comforts of the British Isles for the remote land of India. She was beginning a journey that would last the remaining 56 years of her life. During the coming years she would care for more than 1,000 children who otherwise would have faced a life with no hope followed by eternity without Christ. She would also become one of the great writers of her day as she wrote nearly three dozen books that continue to stir souls a century later. Her life was characterized by total, humble obedience to Christ and a deep desire to do all she could for Him.
Amy Charmichael once said “We will have all eternity to celebrate the victory but only a few hours before sunset.”
Amy was right. Those “few hours before sunset” present the most precious resource God ever entrusted to us-our time. Each of us is in a race with time. The challenge is to see how much we can do for the Kingdom of God between now and the day we die. To do that, we must begin right now, to zealously redeem the time.
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"The story is told of a pastor who designated an area of ground just below his kitchen window as “the spot.” When a well meaning church member would give him a less than savory casserole, he would simply toss it out the kitchen window. When the cook asked next Sunday how he enjoyed his casserole, the pastor would reply, “Why sister Jones, it really hit the spot”.
You see, this pastor did not want to insult the giver by rejecting the gift.
Time is also a gift. And the giver is God. We insult the giver when we squander and waste the gift. While some gifts might be less than desirable, time is the one gift we can all use. Think of your time today as a special gift from God just for you. He wants you to use this gift. And just like Sister Jones, He will be checking back to see what you did with it and whether or not you redeemed the time.
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