Our Days Are Numbered

In my work with clients as their personal financial coach, my focus always is to help them find clarity with their money and their finances.

Most often, in each of our first sessions together, I give my clients one of the most practical books on basic personal financial concepts, The Latte Factor, by David Bach.

One of the themes of the book that I help my clients embrace is aptly represented by David Bach’s quote: “a latte a day keeps retirement away.”

A problem that so many people face with their finances is that they “nickel and dime” themselves out of a comfortable future.

A latte here. A new shirt there. Eating out everywhere.

And before you know it … twenty to thirty years of lattes, new shirts and eating out passes, and there’s been nothing saved for important things … like retirement.

Benjamin Franklin had this idea centuries ago when he said, “Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.”

Opening my client’s eyes to their spending habits is a very important first step in finding clarity with their money.

Once their eyes are opened to the reality of the situation, it is then their choice to actively pursue a new and different course to achieve a new and different result.

In the same vein, an even more important area of our lives that we must manage “religiously” is our time.

We’ve all said a hundred times when looking back and reflecting, “where did the time go?”

Like our money, we can very easily “nickel and dime” (i.e. fritter) it away if we aren’t paying attention. However, unlike our money, we don’t have the opportunity to ‘just go earn more!’

Once time is gone … it’s gone!

The Bible lays it out this way: “[t]he days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)

Our days are numbered and ordered.

We have but so many.

Not a day more. Not a day less … than God ordained.

None of us actually know how this is going to play out, but a sobering and real way that I think about this is as follows:

I am 58 years old.

The average life expectancy of a woman born in the U.S. is 81 years.

This means that if I live an average length of time, I have 23 years of life to live.

Breaking this down just a bit … I have 8,395 more days!

Taking it a step further … if I get 8 hours of sleep per day for each of those 8,395 days, that means I have 134,320 hours of life to live.

Wait?! What?!

134,320 hours?!

Never before has 134,320 looked so small, right?!

So here’s a question … if you knew that you had either 10 hours or 2,500 hours or 134,320 hours left to live, how many of those hours would you choose to spend:

• wasting futile energy debating COVID-19,

• scrolling social media feeds, 

• toiling over your past,

• thinking about things in which you have no control?

I’m guessing the answer is “NOT ONE!” As a matter of fact, not even ONE MINUTE … would you waste on such things! They’re just NOT a good use of your precious time!

But yet … we all have the propensity to spend and waste so much time on things that just don’t matter, right?

In my financial coaching practice, I tell people, you only get to spend a dollar once. 

It’s the same with our time … once the minute, the hour, the day, the week, month and year are “spent” … they’re spent. No do-overs.

So … in these days of “contemplative COVID”, where so many of our lives have been turned upside down, inside out and sideways, and where what has always been is no more, why not use the situation and the time to reflect upon some of the things in life that really matter. The things in life that have deep, meaningful and are even of eternal value.

An exercise I work on with my financial coaching clients is: “what are your top three values in life.” “What is most important to you?”

I’ll ask you the same. What are your top three values in life … what’s most important to you?

Let’s say for example … it’s your faith, your family and your health.

Friends, if you’re spending more than a few minutes of every day on things that don’t align with your faith, your family and your health… something’s not adding up, and you may (likely) need to do a reset.

Does this make sense?

I believe that each of us has the God-given ability to architect our own lives.

I also believe that we have the God-given ability to begin afresh today … and EVERY day … using our finite amount of time in ways to create the life and the legacy we’d like to leave as well as to honor The One who created us and gives us life and time in the first place.

Yes?

None of us know the number of our days. But we do know that they’re numbered.

And God decides the number.

How we choose to spend each day and our allotted time is important.

I believe that one of the most severe misuses of our time is how we spend it in our thought lives, i.e. what we find ourselves thinking about.

God knew this would be a problem, so He laid it out for us. He actually tells us what to think about!

As clearly as can be, Philippians 4:8 reads as follows::

“Finally, brethren,

• Whatsoever things are true,

• Whatsoever things are honest,

• Whatsoever things are just,

• Whatsoever things are pure,

• Whatsoever things are lovely,

• Whatsoever things are of good report; If there be any praise, think on these things.”

I sort of wish I could put a GARGANTUAN EXPLANATION MARK at the end of the scripture! Like a “YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! Think on these things!”

Imagine if every time your thoughts went down the path of being critical, negative, judgemental, worrisome, complaining … you STOPPED yourself and choose something true, honest, just, pure, lovely or of good report to think on.

Wouldn’t that be a better use of your time?!

Of course it would!

God’s Word gives us plenty of instruction for how to live, walk out and spend our earthly days as well:

Colossians 4:5 tells us to “Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time.” And Ephesians 5:15 clearly spells out that we should “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise …”

Simply put, we are to spend our time wisely …  paying close attention to how we’re using it!

Because (1) it’s finite and numbered, and (2) we have God-given gifts to use, God-given missions to accomplish, God-given dreams to fulfill and a God-given purpose for our lives.  

And here it is! Micah 6:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy (kindness in some versions), and to walk humbly with your God?”

I love math and I think in numbers, and one of my favorite (albeit paraphrased) quotes is this:

“I’ve done the math; and, we’re dead a lot longer than we’re alive.” (Zig Ziglar)

In my work with clients as their personal financial coach, I help them find clarity with their money, and help them embrace that they really can “nickel and dime” themselves out of a comfortable future.

As a reminder to me, and my encouragement for you today … let’s not “nickel and dime” ourselves out of one second of the precious time that God gifts to us.

Not one second.

We simply can not afford it!