Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Tanya Wilmuth.

Okay, I'm going to start this morning or afternoon, evening, whenever you're listening to this with a question.

And I want you to think about it and give yourself an honest

answer. If you knew that you were going to die and then God said, I'm going to give you 15 more

years, how would you respond to God? How do you think you would respond to God? How would you spend

that next 15 years of your life

if you knew that every day was an extra gift, just a blessing that God had given you? Would you spend it

worshiping God? Would you spend it serving someone, serving God by doing something for someone else. Would you spend it in a

different career? Would you spend it spending time with your family, more time with your family?

How would you spend 15 extra years? There's a moment in the Lord of the Rings that captures a

question we'll all eventually face. Frodo wishes his burden had never come to him,

and Gandalf responds, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. In other words,

we don't get to choose our story, but we do choose how we live within it. Scripture gives us a real-life

example of this in 2nd Kings 20. King Hesekiah was told he was going to die.

Overwhelmed, he turned his face to the wall. It says he wept and he prayed and God heard his cry and

graciously extended his life by 15 years. In verse 6, the Lord says, I will add 15 years to your life, and I will rescue this city.

I will defend this city for my own honor.

I wish Hezekiah would have taken that part to heart.

God was unmistakably generous with him.

But what Hezekiah did with those added years is a tragedy,

because instead of using them to honor the Lord, he used them to honor himself.

...