By David Oluseyi Ige
Seyi is the director of mobilization for the National Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA) in Nigeria and is the managing editor of Nigeria Missions magazine.
Recently the biggest transfer in the history of football, the World Footballer of the year 08 Cristiano Ronaldo, moved to Real Madrid from Manchester United for a record of 80m Pounds.
In essence, this deal will see Ronaldo earn £9,000,000 per annum this excludes other emoluments and bonuses. This translate to £750,000 in a month, £187,000 a week, £26,786 a day and £1,116 per hour. This in Nigeria Naira (a Pound for N250) 2.25 Billion. This shows that his hourly cost is N279,000.
I learned a great lesson from one of my pastors in the Redeemed Christian Church of God when I was the Choir leader. He knew I could play the Rhythm Guitar very well, though I never placed much value on it. He went ahead to introduce me to his colleague at work who desired to learn how to play.
He asked how much I charge for my hour? I was ridiculously on the low side because I had never evaluated the cost of my hour. He said, “Time is money, you must learn to put value on how much your time is worth.”
That day, I sat down and think of my life not as years, not as months, not as weeks, not even as days but as an entrusted accumulated hours. I discovered that the more a man upgrades and packages himself the more he appreciates.
Since that day I place more emphasis on my time, I decided not to waste or spend my time on things or people who will not yield dividend. The dividend can be in physical, financial, social, material or spiritual rewards.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s one hour take home is more than annual take home of an average middle class Nigerian. But if one is not conscious of the fact that time is life, it is very easy to waste or spend two hours on frivolous activity. I made a resolution to always estimate how much knowledge I will gain from spending my time on any thing. If it is something that will not add value to my life I will shun it and go for a profitable venture.
Have you met people who do not attach value to other people’s time? If they ask you to come for an appointment, they will be 30minutes or 1hour late, all what they will say is an apology. If those kinds of people are those I need something from, I will stock myself with my Bible or literature on which I can invest my time before they come.
Some pastors fall into this category, the service they render in their church never starts at the scheduled time, congregants will sit waiting for the minister to come, if you fall into this group re-order your priority, time is very important to life.
Our life is like a vapour it can be wasted, spent or invested. I Sam 14:12-14, Job 7,14. We will always serve what we love and what we love will always demand our time.
“Uncle Jacob spent the next seven years working to pay for Rachel. But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.” Gen 29:20(NLT)
Many times when we spend our time it always seem to us that it is just some few hours. I believed that Jacob never evaluated His services in term of number of months, days, minutes or seconds.
It was after many years that He came to His senses and said “and now when shall I provide for mine own house also? “When” is a function of time, beloved when will you do something that will count for your eternity?
