We're Burnin' Daylight!

As my wife and I were sleeping, one of my little girls came into our room crying because she'd had an accident -- something that rarely ever happens anymore. As I started going upstairs to find her some dry clothes, I passed through the kitchen and checked the clock on the stove: just over a half an hour before my alarm would go off.

If you're a parent, chances are you've been right where I was. If it had been even half an hour sooner, you'd consider the circumstances long enough to realize you had plenty of time to go back to sleep. But no. Thirty minutes sleep roulette. Maybe you'll be able to go back to sleep, or maybe you'll lie awake as your little one struggles to get comfortable between the two of you. Maybe you should just take the loss and get up early. It's an important decision -- too important, maybe, to be making first thing in the morning, but there you are.

A huge fan of sleep, I chose bed.  I like to squeeze every last drop of sleep out of a night as is humanly possible. I figured, if I could get an extra 15 minutes out of the deal, I was doing okay. That the human body doesn't actually work that way did cross my mind, but then, I'm a pretty committed sleeper, when I get the chance.

No... my ability to get everything possible out of a night's sleep has never been in question. The bigger challenge for me, I've found, is getting everything out of my day.

Often, it is difficult for me to remember that time is a gift, and it is finite. God has given us a limited number of days in which to do His work, but so many of my hours are wasted on things that don't really matter. I will struggle to go back to bed and squeeze every last drop of usefulness out of my sleep, but when it comes to doing the same for my day, I find my commitment often falls far short.

In the movie, The Cowboys, one of John Wayne's catch-phrases is, "We're burnin' Daylight." The meaning was pretty clear. Enough coffee and chit-chat; we have work to do.

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:37-38)

There is work to be done. And we're burnin' daylight.