How Did You Spend Your Time?

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭ESV
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“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.”

‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭1:14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?”

‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭2:22‬ ‭ESV‬‬

King Solomon wrote the words of the above verses towards the end of his life, when he realized how futile it is to seek worldly things. He called it "striving after the wind." This king who had been given wisdom and wealth beyond compare spent much of his life chasing pleasure and power, and none of it ever really satisfied him. It all proved to be empty. Ultimately his priorities were way out of whack. Sound familiar???

Tom Landry once said that football was his god before he was saved and began to follow Jesus Christ. It was his top priority and his wife and family were a little further down the list. His passion for his chosen profession was more than his passion for the things that truly mattered. Becoming a Christian redefined what was important for him, as it should with us all. It should be God first and family right behind. It is amazing how if we simply reorganize our priorities we can still be successful. Faith and family should always rank higher than anything else. 

This is a way more fulfilling way to live. Our relationships are always more meaningful than activites. The most important relationship we can have is with God, and next should always be with the people we love and spend most of our lives with, namely our families. Trust me when I say that there is nothing tougher than looking back on missed opportunities and realizing that some of your days were completely misspent. That is a pain that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. And, friends, if we don't slow down and positively invest in our relationships that is exactly what we will do one day. Like King Solomon, we will realize that we spent a lot of time chasing after things that we couldn't ever really grasp and we neglected the things that needed the most attention. 

We all have and will always have pressures that pull us every which way. They are responsibilities that we can't ignore but at the same time we need to carve out time for the people that matter the most to us and without fail. 

Examine your priorities often. Order you life according to what really matters. If you've spent much of your life on meaningless things, realize it is never too late to change your direction. Always bring your priorities back to their proper focus. Everything has a place and you just need to remember which place is most important.