Solitaire

I look at my computerized-Solitaire winning percentage.  37%.  Not very high.  But I don't feel like I have much else to do, so I keep playing.  And keep playing.  About fifteen games later, I finally stop, convicted that I could probably find something more productive to do.  But before I leave the game, I look at my winning percentage one more time.  Guess what?  It's still 37%.  Well over thirty minutes of my life and nothing changed - you can't even tell I spent time playing Solitaire.  Thirty minutes of my life had been used up without any lasting significance.

"Everyday is a bank account

And time is our currency

So no one's rich, nobody's poor

We get twenty-four hours each

So how are you gonna spend

Will you invest or squander

Try to get ahead 

Or help someone who's under?"

"Life Means So Much," by Chris Rice, raises a thought-provoking question.  How are we going to spend our lives?  We have less time than we think.  "What is your life?" James asks us.  "For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" (James 4:14).  When I was little, time seemed to drag by very slowly.  Adults always told me that time flies, but I found it hard to believe.  At the end of our lives, though, we will be surprised how quickly we have spent our days.


It has been estimated that, by the end of a sixty-five-year-life, the average person will have spent nine years watching television.  Nine years spent sitting in front of a television tube.  Other ways we waste our time are more subtle: a little daydreaming here, watching the same YouTube video four times in an hour, or a game of Solitaire that turns into ten games.  Sports, movies, chit-chat, gossip; our time is spent "mulling over things that won't live past today" (Casting Crowns, "Here I Go Again").  What about purpose and vision? Where is our passion for a life that glorifies God?


While there is nothing inherently wrong with TV, sports, or Solitaire, why do we spend such great amounts of time on activities that have no eternal significance?  God calls us to pray without ceasing, study to show ourselves approved (so that we can be able to give an answer for the hope that is in us), and make the best use of the little time we have - and we're squandering so much of it on activities that have no eternal purpose.  We must use our time to do what God has called us to do.


As Chris Rice's song continues, "Teach us to count the days/Teach us to make the days count" ("Life Means So Much," Chris Rice).  While, again, there is nothing wrong with a game or two of Solitaire, may I always remember that playing a game is not what makes a day count.  Obedience to God and diligent working to do His will is what determines a day well-spent.  May we always be careful to, as Paul entreated, "Look carefully then how you walk...making the best use of the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-17).