Brother Jim’s blog post this morning is a good challenge for all of us. Jim and I talked about this very thing on the phone yesterday: what would we do different if we had the last fifteen years to do over again?

My mind goes to King Hezekiah in the Old Testament. If you remember, he was a great king who made great choices. Then one day he got sick - very sick. He was told to get his affairs in order because he was going to die. Then he prayed to God, asking for mercy. God healed him and told him he would have 15 more years. (He’s the only person that ever knew when he was going to die!) He knew he had 15 years to change things.

We don’t know how much time we have to make necessary changes. We do know, though, that if we don”t change we’ll grow stale and ineffective. Every fall I change the filter on my furnace at home. Could I skip a year and forget about changing that $20 filter? Yes. Would the furnace still work? Yes. But it wouldn’t be efficient.

What would you change about the last 15 years of your ministry? What would you change if you knew you had 15 more years ahead of you? Unfortunately, God doesn’t promise us 15 more years. That’s why God says to “make the most of your time” right now. (Ephesians 5:16)

P.S. What Hezekiah did with those last fifteen years is one of the saddest stories in the Bible. He wasted them. He made bad choice after bad choice, ultimately leading to the Babylonian captivity. Read 2 Kings 20 to see it for yourself. Don’t waste your “fifteen years”. Make the changes you need to be efficient today.