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So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

I ran across a great article in a Catholic publication about opportunity costs and what it means for us, now, in relationship to eternity. You can access it by clicking --> here <-- Much of what I write here comes from that source. 

I remember studying opportunity cost in a Macroeconomics class. Put simply, opportunity costs means that we choose one thing over another, thereby increasing the cost of the choice by forfeiting the alternate opportunity. For example, if I have five dollars, I can use it to go to a movie or to buy a comic book. The cost of going to the movie is both the $5 and the cost of not owning the comic book (and vice versa). I gave up on one opportunity to seize a different one.

In this life, if we choose to "doom scroll" on our phones for one hour instead of engaging our family in conversation, we have paid for the momentary high of social media with the time with family. Likewise, if we had sought family time for that hour, we would not have had the temporal mental/emotional "high" that the internet offers. Life is full of choices like this. Do you take your kid to a sports tournament or do you go to church? Do you get up early and exercise or d you grab more sleep? Do you work a job for greater income or do you volunteer your time? Each choice carries with it the usage of time and opportunity in one direction and the loss of time and opportunity in another.  

Time, unlike money, is a finite asset. We only have a limited quantity of the stuff. Unlike money, which we can gain more of as we go along, time is a gift of God. He has only given us a certain amount. We cannot grow or gain any more of it. Because of this, time is more prescious than money. Yet we often use it unwisely. 

This world is a blip when compared to eternity. It is one of the great and glorious mysteries of God that in this blip, we determine what our eternity looks like. Will we choose to spend our opportunity in the blip to worship, repent, believe, pray, disciple, and live for Christ, or will we pretend like eternity doesn't exist - reduce all that we have to this life - and spend our opportunities on self-indulgence. 

In the book, "The Silver Chair," by C.S. Lewis, the author has two children (from Earth) and one marshwiggle (from Narnia) rescue a prince (also from Narnia) from an underground prison, where he has been captive for ten years. His captor had convinced him that there is no such thing as a world above the cavern. According to her, the "overworld" is just make believe. When the rescuers set the prince free, they are discovered by the captor, who endeavors to convince them all that there is no world above the underground. She lures them into a disbelieving drowsiness. Then the marshwiggle, Puddleglum, snaps out of the trance and confronts the deceiver with these words:

"Suppose we have only dreamed or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himslef. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.  Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a fuuny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game,  can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side ..."

This world is not all there is. This is another great mystery of creation: in the fall, man has become blinded to the things of God. Man thinks that this blip we live in is all there is. Since this is their entire world, they live for themself. Because they are blinded and living for self, their opportunity cost is eternity. They choose the here-and-now, and they forfeit eternity in God's presence. 

That needn't be so. God's people should endeavor to wake this sleep-entranced world and point them to hope, faith, love, righteousness, and salvation. God's people should carefully count every opportunity cost they encounter, and do what is right for their well-being, their family, their vocation, but do it all for the greater kingdom - God's kingdom. 

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2b)