$86,400 worth of Time?

I was asked by the leader of our Youth group to give a small talk to the Youth one Friday night. At first I was stumped as to what I was going to talk about as well as make it effective without it being a lecture.

I needed a simple topic that can make the Youth change how they think about their lives. Thankfully I stumbled upon a picture on the Internet and my speech came together.

I won't go too much into the picture but rather the speech I gave. In my presentation I asked a question: "Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day and every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day – what would you do with the money?"

The usual answers were shouted out: "buy a car!" "Withdraw the money so it can be used all up and not deleted at the end of the day!"

From here I told them that there is a bank, called 'Time'. Each morning God credits you with 86,400 seconds to spend however you please, and each night God writes off as a loss whatever of this you failed to invest to a good purpose.

Use time wisely

The talk focused on the theme, using time wisely, you can't draw against 'Tomorrow', you must live in the present, on today's deposit.

Invest it to get the utmost of faith, health, happiness and success. The clock is running, make the most of everyday. My speech ended there.

I'm not sure about other people but when I speak in public I get a rough idea on how it went.

When I said it 86,400 worth of seconds not money everyone in the crowd had an 'ah!' moment, as well as after the Youth Fellowship, had finished I saw a few guys calculating to make sure there is 86,400 seconds in a day – yes there is: (60 secs x 60 mins) x 24 hours = 86,400 seconds.

I made a joke during my speech that "I don't want to get all 'Dead Poets Society' and go 'Carpe Diem', but I am defiantly encouraging you all to not take time for granted"

As I finish this article I encourage the readers to remember the clock is ticking – make the most of everyday!

Christopher Archibald lives in Sydney and is an under-graduate student.

Christopher Archibald's previous articles may be viewed at