Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk-not as unwise people but as wise-making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish but understand what the Lord’s will is.     Ephesians 5:15-17 CSB

In our Scripture passage, Paul is encouraging the Ephesians to walk as wise people and not like those who are encumbered by intellectual limitations. He then encouraged them to make wise use of their time and to take every opportunity to worship and serve the Lord. As Christians, we must remember that our time on this earth is very brief, and we must seize every opportunity to serve Him and worship Him.

We often see ads that promise that in just 15 minutes a day, we can improve our quality of life. In just 15 minutes a day for one week, you can drop 5 pounds. In just 15 minutes a day, you can get in the best shape of your life. In just 15 minutes a day, you can increase your income. In just 15 minutes a day, you can look like a million bucks.

For some reason, 15 minutes a day doesn’t sound impossible to fit into our daily lives. We all figure we can spare 15 minutes. We can get up 15 minutes earlier. We can go to bed 15 minutes later. But if we go past that number then we deem it impossible, or at least I do.

But who can’t spare 15 minutes, right? Well, apparently a lot of us can’t spare 15 minutes. There was a time in my life when I didn’t even spend 15 minutes a day in Bible study and prayer. I would spend a couple of hours exercising my body, but not 15 minutes to gain wisdom, peace, and joy.

If you google the average amount of time spent on social media, you will see that according to a study conducted by statista.com, the average time spent on social media per day is 147 minutes.  In 24 hours, there are 1,440 minutes. Let’s say we sleep for 8 hours and are awake 16 hours, or 960 minutes. If you divide 960 minutes by 147 minutes this means that people are spending an average of 1/6 of their day on social media.

Now if we are to tithe one-tenth of our money, one-tenth of our time in 24 hours would be 144 minutes or 96 minutes out of 960, right? If you aren’t spending even a fraction of that worshiping or serving the Lord but are spending more than that doing things like combing through social media or watching the news or playing video games you might want to rethink that, just sayin’.

If half or 3/6 of the day is spent working and 1/6 is spent on our phones, this only leaves 2/6 of the day free for anything else such as spending time with family and friends or worshipping or serving the Lord.

If you have an iPhone, you can look up your weekly activity and get an average of how much time you spend looking at the screen and a breakdown of what you spend that time on whether it is the Bible app, YouTube, social media, games, videos, etc. I challenge you to check it out.

How much time do you spend looking at the screen each day? I challenge you to put your phone down and pick up a good old-fashioned Bible. You know, the kind with actual pages that you have to turn.

Are you failing to spend at least 15 minutes a day worshipping or serving the Lord, but spending 147 minutes or more on social media, playing games, or doing anything else that won’t benefit you in any way?

Imagine freeing up 147 minutes to help someone else or to serve in a church ministry. Imagine all the good you could do even if you only volunteered 147 minutes per week.

I encourage you to give this some thought. I encourage you to use your time wisely because not one of us knows how much time we have. If you knew you only had another 1,440 minutes left to live, how would you use that time?

My prayer for you today is that in the 960 minutes of awake time today, you will use at least 15 minutes to worship and serve the Lord. In just 15 minutes a day, you can grow closer to Him. You will find yourself loving Him and wanting to spend more time with Him. My friend, that’s using your time wisely.

Have a great 1,440 minutes!