Not Our Time

  This is an excerpt from an old book for young ladies,and is alot like a post I did a few months ago, though of course, he says it better. I like to remind myself of this perspective often, and I wanted to remind you too!

 
   When you entered into solemn covenant with the Lord, you consecrated your whole life to his service. Your time, then, is not your own, but the Lord's. If you waste it, or spend it unprofitably, you rob God...       Suppose you waste only ten minutes at a time, six times in a day; this will make an hour. This hour is subtracted from that portion of your time which might have been devoted to active employments. Sleeping, refreshment, and personal duties, generally occupy at least one half of the twenty-four hours. You have then lost one twelfth part of the available portion of the day. Suppose, then,you live to the age of seventy years. Take from this the first ten years of your life. From the sixty remaining, you will have thrown away five years! These five years are taken from that portion of your time which should have been employed in the cultivation of your mind, and in the practical duties of religion. For, the common excuse for neglecting the improvement of the mind, and the cultivation of personal piety, is want of time. Now, if you employ one half of this time in reading, at the rate of twenty pages an hour, you will be able to read more than eighteen thousand pages; or sixty volumes of three hundred pages each. If you employ the other half in devotional exercises in your closet, in addition to the time you would spend in this manner, upon the supposition that these five years are lost, what an influence will it have upon the health of your soul? Or, if you spend the whole of it in the active duties of Christian benevolence, how much good can you accomplish? Think what you might do by employing five years in the undivided service of your Master.

Newcomb, Harvey (2009-10-04). A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister (Kindle Locations 2108-2115). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

*p.s.- I would recommend this book to any young lady seeking to grow in God. I haven't been all the way through it yet, but the parts that I have read, have inspired and motivated me in my walk with God. It's free on Amazon for the Kindle version, and I had it delivered to my PC, so it works out well!