What do you put in front of your eyes throughout the day? On average, we spend around 16 hours a day awake, and every second our eyes are open, we are looking at something. Think about where your gaze is set during that time. How much time do you spend looking at the mirror in the morning? How many moments are spent seeing your family or friends before the day gets started? What about at your job? Do you spend most of your time seeing clients, reading text on a monitor, or watching your hands as you work? Where are you looking throughout the day?
The average American spends ~7 hours per day looking at screens [1]. I am certain I spend much more than that, since as a web developer my job is done completely on a computer. I’ll also admit that I probably spend too much time (even outside of work) playing video games, scrolling Facebook, and watching YouTube Shorts. I think most of us could admit that we could cut back on screen time to our benefit, but upon what shall we train our eyes instead?
Write down (or type) your estimation of the amount of time (or percentage of your day, if you’re a whiz at stats) you spend looking at everything you do. I guarantee it will be a sobering experience.
We are reminded in Ephesians 5 to make the best use of the time we are given.
‘See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.’
—Ephesians 5:15-16
The idea of “time redemption” is like we think of time in a financial way—we spend it. You are given 24 hours a day. How will you spend it? In what order of priority do you allot time for the things you do? If we are not spending the time we should on what we should, then we have a valuation problem. We purchase what we value. In the same way, we spend the currency of time on those activities we value, and when the bank is empty we can see what didn’t make the cut.
What you set before your eyes are those things on which you spend your time.
So take your estimation—your “time budget” you created—and reorganize. Are there things that didn’t make the cut that should have? Reorder the things in your life by their true, eternal value, and make the most valuable things your key budget items. You need sleep. You need food. You need time with your family and friends. Do you not also NEED time with the Lord—time in His word? What is most valuable?
As we all know, when it comes to budgeting, sacrifices have to be made. I can’t buy every fun thing that crosses my mind, or I will have nothing left with which to feed my family or pay the mortgage. In the same way, I can’t spend all my time looking at things that waste time, or I will have no time left to “look into the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25).
What if we always kept Scripture in sight? How would our life be different? What if we gave God the “firstfruits” of our time?
Let’s try it together, and we might just SEE.
V
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[1] “Alarming Average Screen Time Statistics (2025),” by Fabio Duarte. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats
Scripture references are from the New King James Version