Just a Few More Minutes
By Vickey Pahnke Taylor

“Just a few more minutes!” How different the outcome might be if only someone had waited a few more minutes, trusted for a few more minutes, worked a few more minutes, hung in there for a few more minutes. May, realistically, “just a few more minutes” make a big difference? 

Ask an Olympic competitor – whose wins are measured in hundredths of seconds, not in minutes.

Ask a driver whose car, stuck on a railroad track, shifted into gear just a minute or so before the oncoming train whisked by.

Ask a father caught in traffic, unable to get to his daughter’s graduation ceremony in time, missing it by just a few minutes!

What if we knew our mortal time was short? Would we spend it more carefully? Would we wish for a bit more of it – even ‘just a few more minutes”?

As a daughter who has had both parents move beyond this mortal sphere, I can genuinely say that I would love a few more minutes with my parents – to hear their voices, see their smiles, share a laugh, learn a thing or two more from them! 

Time is a precious commodity. It is the stuff of mortality. We have an opportunity to learn how to wisely use this portion of hours given to us. To make every minute count. Minutes, after all, make hours. Each of us receive twenty four of them each day with which to manage our mortal time!

President Spencer W. Kimball spoke these words:  “Jesus taught us how important it is to use our time wisely…Time cannot be recycled. When a moment has gone, it is really gone. Wise time management is really wise management of ourselves.” (Ensign,  August 1979, p.6.)  

I love this illustration offered by Elder J. Richard Clarke, “Use your spare time wisely. If we waste thirteen minutes each day, it is the equivalent of two weeks a year without pay.” (Ensign, May 1982, p.78.)  Amazing, right? What a clear picture this offers us of how important each minute may be! 

Imagine what you and I could do with an additional thirteen minutes a day, offered completely and wholeheartedly to the Lord’s work.  Just an extra thirteen minutes a day could change our lives. We might:

1) Learn more through prayer.

2) Make a couple of phone calls to check on a sick or isolated ward member

3) Visit an elderly neighbor who desperately needs company.

4) Do an extra chore (gasp) for a family member.

5) Make regular entries in our journals.

6) Get in at least ten minutes of physical exercise daily!

7) Begin to attack a task that we keep putting off, working only a few minutes a day until      the task is completed.

8) Learn a new skill, a few minutes at a time.

9) Whatever you want to do. Write it down and then go to work on it!

Try making a short list. Then watch the things on that list become part of your life as you spend just a few minutes a day making sure they happen.

Because we are members of Christ’s church, and have available to us the teachings of the eternal gospel plan, it is our responsibility to learn to wisely use our time. To enjoy our time. To make our time count. To be able to answer to the Lord that each day mattered and that the mortal moments given us were used in a noble way.  One of my Dad’s favorite scriptures was this one: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve…But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Josh. 24:15.) As I mature, I gain better understanding of the wisdom and love contained in those words!

Just a few more minutes spent in loving, caring service can make huge differences in our quality of life. Our joys could be more full and our regrets fewer. We may have more laughs, more smiles, and more eternal insights. This would add up to a big difference in our lives. All because of “just a few more minutes”!