This document discusses how time is one of our most valuable resources because once it's spent, it cannot be regained. It emphasizes that small, consistent investments of time in important areas like family, health, faith and relationships have immense cumulative value over the long run, whereas neglect or wasting time on unimportant tasks also has negative cumulative effects. The key is to identify wise uses of time that provide lasting benefits and make those activities a priority and consistent routine in order to make the most of the limited time we have.

1. A Question ofTime
Based onThe Best Question Ever by Andy Stanley

2. YourTime =Your Life
• You can run out of money and still have life left. You can run out of friends
with life to spare. But once you run out of time, it’s over.
• Job 14:5
• You and I have “bounds [we] cannot pass. We can overeat, overspend, and
overachieve, but we cannot overlive.
• Psalm 90:12
• Nicole and I were married for six years before our first child. When we look
back now, we wonder what we did with all our free time. Where did it go?
• The answer: Away, and there is no way to recover even a minute of it.
• What we do with our time is more important that simply knowing what time
it is, how old we are, or even how much time is left.

3. In light of my past experiences, my current
responsibilities, and my future hopes and dreams,
what is the wisest way to invest my time?
• There is a cumulative value to investing small amounts of time in certain
activities over a long period of time.
• Exercise is an obvious example. There is no obvious benefit to one session, which is
why it’s so easy to talk ourselves out of it.
• The real value is that exercise has a compounding effect. It is the consistent,
incremental investment of time that makes a difference.
• So here are a few other areas of life where this concept holds true: dinner with the
family, date night with your spouse, time alone with God, church attendance, one-
on-one time with your kids, praying with your family, small group Bible study.
• These routines, these incremental investments of time – life – have immeasurable
cumulative value.

4. • There are rarely immediate consequences for neglecting single
installments of time in any area of life.
• Neglect your health for a day, or a week, and you won’t experience any
negative effects.
• The same dynamic plays itself out in every area of life.
• If you miss one dinner with the family, it’s no big deal. Pick up a newspaper
instead of your Bible one morning, and life goes on.
• It’s deceiving but true that we rarely see any immediate consequences for
neglecting a single installment of time in any area of life.
• But if neglect becomes your pattern, you will eventually bump up against
another truth:

5. • Neglect has a cumulative effect.
• Eating fast food for one week is not a big deal, but ten years of it will add up
to permanent damage to your health.
• Neglect has a cumulative effect physically, relationally, spiritually,
professionally, financially, and emotionally.
• ITimothy 4:14
• Neglect anything over a long period of time and you will have something to
show for it – usually a mess!
• A burst of energy and activity cannot reverse the consequences that
accompany a season of neglect.
• While it’s true that small consistent investments of time add up to good
things, and that consistent neglect adds up to bad things, the random
pursuits that we allow to interrupt our important routines add up to nothing.

6. • There is no cumulative value to the urgent things we allow to interfere
with the important things.
• If you add up all the stuff you do instead of exercising, what would the value
of it be?
• The random pursuits that interrupt our important routines don’t add up to
anything more than wasted time.
• There is never any cumulative value to all the things we do INSTEAD of the
things we know are truly important.
• It’s more than just wasting time; you are wasting your life.

7. • In the critical arenas of life, you cannot make up for lost time.
• You don’t get a chance to relive your teens, your 20s, your 30s; you can’t
rewind your marriage or re-raise your kids.
• Ever try to make up for a missed day at the gym? What happens?
• Ephesians 5:15-16
• Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
• Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
• What can you begin to do consistently – physically, relationally,
professionally, and spiritually – that will have a cumulative value?
• Your time is your life? What is the wise thing to do with your time?