Apparently, Lord Nelson attributed all his successes in life to being 15 minutes early on every occasion. “To that quarter of an hour I owe everything in life,” he is quoted as saying. If you are 15 minutes early to everything, then I would guess that there is to be found in the act either commendation or pity. Commendation for your cast iron resolve to first get everything and everyone where they need to be, or pity for the poor soul who makes sure that everything and everyone is where they need to be…so that you can be 15 minutes early. People have never been so busy. Work especially is eating up time like a cancer. If this is you, sadly, something will give—it always does.
As much as a time-planner will help, it will never win the day. Luke said of Jesus in Luke 9:51—”When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus’ mission was not a statement—it was a predetermined act! Everything he did was in the direction of the cross. He had told his disciples earlier that “he must go up to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Mt.16:21). Peter’s protestations were met with a curt, “Get behind me Satan.” Even the sincere concern of a good man was not going to deter Jesus from achieving what he had come to do. I hope you are asking what all this has to do with your overrun existence. How it is supposed to ease the burdens of your daily time deficit. What I am proposing is that we set our faces toward the Heavenly Jerusalem. That we take up our crosses daily and die to self and live for the Kingdom of Christ. ‘Must we not do both?’ you ask. No one is suggesting that baby is left to fend for himself and work be abandoned. What is being proposed is that we look to the failure of chasing the things that have already been loaded on to our credit cards, and to stiffen our resolve to pursue the real goal—Heaven! You must meet the new day with this reality: “All this will burn. Only spiritual things matter where I am heading—to the throne of God.” You just may make it there fifteen minutes early.
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