Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

I'm Wyn Collier, and I wrote today's piece, Time Well Spent.

On March 14, 2019, NASA rockets ignited,

catapulting astronaut Christina Koch toward the International Space Station.

Coke wouldn't return to Earth for 328 days, giving her the record for the longest continuous

spaceflight by a woman. Every day, living roughly 254 miles above the earth, a screen kept track of the

astronaut's time in five-minute increments.

She had a myriad of daily tasks to complete, from mills to experiments.

An hour, after hour, a red line inched along the display constantly showing whether

Coke was ahead or behind schedule.

Not a moment to waste.

While certainly not recommending anything so intrusive as a red line ruling over our life.

The Apostle Paul did encourage us to carefully use our precious limited resource of time.

Be very careful then how you live, he wrote in Ephesians 5,

not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.

God's wisdom instructs us to fill our days with intention and care, employing them to practice

obedience to him, to love our neighbor, and to participate in Jesus's ongoing redemption in the world.

Sadly, it's entirely possible to ignore wisdom's instruction

and instead use our time foolishly,

frittering away our years in selfish or destructive pursuits.

The point isn't too obsessively fred about time,

but simply to follow God in obedience and trust.

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