We are in a series called The Mature Man — diving into the areas of a man’s life where real growth happens. We’ve covered your walk with God, your personal health, and your relationships. This week we step into a new section of the Wheel: Your Time and Priorities. And we’re starting off with something we all have a strange and strained relationship with…time.

As a pastor, I have sat at the bedside of a lot of people in their final days. It is one of the most sobering and clarifying places I have ever been. And in all those conversations — all those moments where a man or woman is looking back at a life nearly finished — I have never once heard anyone say they wished they had bought that car sooner. Never heard anyone say they wished they had logged more hours at the office or gotten that promotion they missed. Not once. What I have heard is a longing to go back. Back to seasons that are gone. Back to people they didn’t invest enough time in. Back to moments that seemed ordinary then but feel irreplaceable now.

The end of a life has a way of burning off everything that doesn’t matter and leaving only what does. And what’s left is never stuff. It’s always people. It’s always time. It’s always the question of whether the hours added up to something that mattered.

When my oldest child was born in 2014, my dad pulled me aside and said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Time is going to start speeding up now that you have someone else counting it for you.”

He was right. And it has only gotten more true with every year.

It’s like trying to hold a handful of water. You cup your hands as tight as you can, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t keep it from slipping through your fingers. The days blur together. Seasons change faster than you’re ready for. And somewhere in the middle of it all, you look up and realize your kids are a different size than they were in that picture on your phone from what feels like last week.

There is a strange mix of emotions that comes with that. Amazement at how much life you’ve packed in. The weight of the great memories made. And underneath all of it, sometimes a deep sadness — because they will never be two years old again. That season is gone. You won’t get it back. I don’t cry a lot but in full transparency, if I let myself sit in that reality for longer than a few minutes, it can make me very emotional.

I don’t think we talk about that enough. There is a grief in the passage of time that most men push away too quickly. It is not just nostalgia. It is something closer to loss — and it’s real.

But here is where faith steps in and gives the whole thing a different frame.

Peter wrote:

“With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

2 Peter 3:8

The reason that hits differently than a hallmark card about “making the most of it” is that it forces us to face what we actually believe. We are not purely physical beings moving toward a biological ending. We are spiritual beings having a temporary physical experience. We were made for eternity. We currently exist inside chronological time — everything has a beginning and an end. And because of sin and death, you and I have a physical expiration date. But we were made for a life beyond this current reality.

That sadness you feel when you look at an old photo? It’s not a flaw. It’s a signal. You were wired for something that lasts. And that awareness should not lead you to grief and paralysis — it should produce clarity. Urgency. A refusal to drift through whatever time you have left.

Moses understood this. He prayed:

“So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

Psalm 90:12

Notice what he asked for. He didn’t ask God to slow time down. He asked for the wisdom to feel its weight and live accordingly.

James was even more blunt about it:

“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

James 4:14

A mist. One moment it’s there — then you look up and it’s disappeared. That’s your life in the economy of eternity. That is not meant to depress us, but to wake us up.

So how does a man wake up? It starts by being honest about what he’s actually doing with his time.

THREE WAYS MEN DEAL WITH TIME

There are three postures a man can take toward his time. Most of us cycle through all three depending on the season or even the day. The goal is to understand each one so you can honestly assess where you are.

1. WASTE IT

This one doesn’t need much explanation. We already know it. Endless scrolling. Hours of content that literally doesn’t matter. Days that ended without anything meaningful to show for them. No one does this on purpose, but it happens by default when a man has no intentional relationship with his time.

And here’s the thing — your phone isn’t inherently the enemy. The same device you use to mindlessly scroll is the same one you can use to send an encouraging text, call a brother you’ve been meaning to check in on, or read something that actually builds you up (like a certain blog I know of that comes out on Fridays). The tool isn’t the problem. What you use it for is.

The waste posture doesn’t come from laziness as much as it comes from a man who hasn’t caught a daily revelation of the brevity of life.

2. SPEND IT

This is where most men actually live. You’re not wasting time — you’re trading it for things that need to get done. Work. Errands. The demands of family. The obligations that stack up. You’re busy. You’re providing. You’re handling it.

And that’s not nothing. There is dignity in that.

But think about it in terms of money. You can spend money and get value from what you bought. It’s not waste. But spending is not the same as building. There is a difference between a man who spends every dollar he makes on necessary things and a man who makes every dollar work toward something that compounds over time.

The same is true with time. Spending it keeps life moving. But it might not build anything that outlasts you.

3. INVEST IT

This is the category that changes the trajectory of a man’s life. And it requires a framework.

I want to introduce a concept that helps me evaluate how I’m spending my days. It’s called ROTI — Return on Time Invested.

You’ve heard of ROI — return on investment. It’s a financial term. But time works the same way. Every hour you put somewhere is an investment. The question is — what is it returning?

When I talk about return, I don’t mean productivity metrics or accomplishments on a to-do list. I mean: does this investment outlive me? Does it build something that lasts beyond this moment, this season, this life?

Investing in your kids — showing up, being present, having the conversations — returns a legacy that shapes who they become and who they’ll raise. Investing in your marriage builds a covenant that other people are watching and will remember long after you’re gone. Investing in younger men around you — discipling, speaking truth, being present — is kingdom work that compounds across generations.

That is ROTI.

It is just like James says, our life is a mist. Not a monument. Not a legacy by default. Just here for a moment, then gone. A short life lived on purpose is a completely different thing from a short life that just happened to a man. Solomon wrote that there is a time for everything — a season for each thing under heaven. The mature man understands the season he’s in and invests accordingly.

The man who is in the season of raising young kids who invests that time — even when it’s inconvenient and he’s tired — will look back on those years with deep satisfaction. The man who spent it all managing his schedule will look back with the grief of what he missed.

You cannot go back. But you can decide what you do with what’s still in front of you.

THIS WEEK

Moses didn’t just write about numbering your days — he prayed for it. He asked God to teach him to feel the weight of time so that wisdom would follow. That’s the posture. Not guilt. Not panic. Just an honest daily reckoning with how you’re using what you’ve been given.

To help with that, I’ve put together a one-page Daily Reflection sheet. It’s simple — a quick end-of-day audit that helps you honestly evaluate whether you wasted, spent, or invested your time that day. It has a 1–5 score for the areas that matter most, space to write out what was meaningful and what wasn’t, and three declaration prompts for tomorrow — who you’ll invest in, what you’ll protect your time for, and what you’ll guard against. Five minutes before bed. That’s it. Do it consistently and it will change the way you think about your days.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE DAILY REFLECTION SHEET

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, I don’t want to drift through the time You’ve given me. I feel the weight of how fast it moves and I want that weight to produce urgency, not regret. Teach me to number my days. Help me to invest — in the people You’ve placed in front of me, in the work You’ve called me to, in the legacy that outlives me. I don’t want to waste what You’ve entrusted. I want to make it count. Amen.

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