Think God asks for too much time?

If you have teenagers, you've heard the complaint before--Church takes too much time!

So I got calculating. This is what I discovered.

There are 168 hours in a week. The Lord asks that we spend 3 of those hours in church. That gives us 165 hours left. By the end of the year, if we haven't missed a single Sunday, we will have given Him only 156 hours out of 8,760. That's just 6 days a year to the Lord!

During the years we go to seminary and Church, the amount of time the Lord asks us to give Him each week is 8. That totals 416 hours a year, or 17 days annually.

Now, if we attend seminary faithfully and go to Church every Sunday, by the time we are 19 years old, we will have given the Lord a 19-year-total of just 166 days—not even half a year! To give Him just 730 more days to serve a mission seems like a very small price to pay…especially when we truly look at how short that time is over an 80-year life.

By the time we come home from a full-time mission at the age of 21, we will have given the Lord a total of 896 days out of 7,665 days, or just two years and five months. Not bad.

What about life after a mission?

Well, if we go to Church every Sunday for the rest of our life and do nothing else, at the end of those 80 years or 29,200 days--we will have given the Lord a total of 1,256 days or less than one more additional year. That comes to a grand, life-time total of three years and 5 months—and that’s after serving a full-time, two-year mission!

(166 days before a mission +730 days during a mission +360 days after a mission [6 days a year x 60 years=360 days] = 1,256 days total)

If we serve in extra callings during the remainder of those 80 years and give up an average of 5 hours each week in addition to the 3 we spend each week in Church, our total sacrifice will rise to 1,976 days or 5 years and 3 months of 'full-time', faithful service!

(166 days before a mission +730 days during a mission +1,020 days after a mission [17 days a year x 60 years=1,080 days] = 1,916 days total)

Five years to serve God and return Home with honor?

He really doesn’t ask us for very much of our time, does He?