Country Chatter

Have you ever considered how long 10,000 hours is? And you may wonder, does it even matter?

My employee had heard the song “10,000 Hours” written by Justin Bieber, and it got her intrigued with the numbers (math) and she started relaying it to me. It made for interesting conversation.

Fun with the math:

• One day=24 hours
• One year: 365 days x 24 hours=8,760 hours
• 10,000 hours=416.7 days
• There are 60 minutes in an hour or 1440 minutes in a day. One year is 525,600 minutes.
• If you sleep an average of 8 hours a day that is 2920 hours a year or by the time you are 70, you will have slept 204,400 hours.

If you are 20 years old, you have lived 175,200 hours. By the time you are 70, you will have lived 613,200 hours or if you are interested, that is 36,792,000 minutes!

In some ways that is staggering and in other ways I am amazed that it doesn’t add up to more.

Did you know the Bible has something to say about our years (time) on earth?

• Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night. (A watch is a four hour period of time).
• II Peter 3:8 Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
• Psalms 90:10 The days of our lives are seventy years or even by reason of strength, eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone and we fly away.
• Job 14:5 Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass.
• Matthew 6:27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
• Psalms 144:4 Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
• James 4:14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
• Psalms 90:12 Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

We count our years, celebrating each one with joy. Our days are metered by minutes and hours. We work, play, rest, sleep, eat, watch TV, travel and shop all by the clock. We allot time for worship, travel and visiting with family and friends, all by the clock. Time dictates and controls our day. If things go as we plan, we feel in control, but if we are late, we feel like we have lost time. Inconveniences mess with our time.

When we are little we can’t wait to graduate from high school and be an adult. Then we can’t wait to be married, buy a house, have kids. It isn’t long until we can’t wait until we can retire and suddenly the golden years don’t feel so golden. We wish life away and remember with longing the past. Where did life go? Time can not be put on hold, retracted or relived.

What have you accomplished that has eternal value? Have you taken time to know God? Do you take time each week to rest and worship with a community of faith? Do you spend time each day praying and reading God’s word? Has anyone been impacted and changed by your faith because you cared enough to share with them?

God is eternal and He has put eternal spirits within us. Our destiny is determined while there is time. When we die, time will have no meaning as eternity has no time; no beginning, no end. Our finite minds can not grasp the infinite.

613,200 hours or 70 years is the allotted average lifespan God has given man. We do well to heed the words of the Psalmist, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. (Psalms 90-12)