Idle Time | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 16, 1871

Idle Time.

How much of life is wasted from lack of calculation, and from not knowing what to do next. It is wise so to arrange our matters that every hour shall have its employment or pursuit; so that when one work is done, our hands shall readily find something else to do.

It is not necessary that our lives should be one continual round of unbroken drudgery. Needful repose is not idleness. Healthful relaxation is not idleness. Attention to friends and acquaintances, and conformity to innocent social usage, is not idleness. Time given to the service of God, to worship, prayer, praise, and social fellowship with the people of the Lord, is not idleness. All this may be done heartily as unto the Lord; for he wills that we should do it. But the labor to which man is appointed by the wise ordinance of God, while it allows him time for recreation and repose, preserves him from the listlessness and languor, and the misery and mischief, which are the bane and curse of idleness. We should study so to fill up our time that we shall be kept from the evil communications of a wicked world. And if we see around us an atmosphere of corruption and stagnation, instead of yielding to it, we are to remember that Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. And recollecting this, we are to dare to be singular, and lift up our example against the tide of surrounding sinfulness, and be diligent, and faithful, and earnest, no matter how the world may ridicule and oppose. Our moments are precious; and for their improvement we must give a strict account. And if we remember our responsibility, we may well adopt the saying of Dionysius the Sicilian, who, being asked by one who went to speak with him if he was at leisure, answered, “Heaven forbid that I should ever have any leisure time.”—The Christian.