The rhythmic and timely sound of a ticking second hand has been hushed by the advance of technology and the proliferation of digital watches. The value of a second isn’t found in its sound but in the action that transpires within this brief span of time that’s 1/86400^th of a day and 1/60^th of a minute.

Most people don’t give a second thought to the length of a second, but something unusual will happen on New Year’s Eve. When clocks strikes midnight in England, the final minute of 2016 will be 61 seconds long to adjust the world clock to the correct time.

Just how important is a second?

• If you’re an astronaut it’s important since the speed of light travels at 18600 feet per second ( At the speed of light, the moon is about 1.5 seconds from the earth)
• If you like hot rods, you know that a fraction of a second is the difference between winning and losing at the drag strip.
• If you play baseball, one second is the time it takes for a baseball to leave the pitcher’s hand, get hit by the batter, and then be line-driven back to the pitcher.
• Beekeepers think of one second as the time it takes for a honey bee to flap its wings 200 times.
• One second is the amount of the time it takes for the earth to receive 48,600,000,000kw of energy form the sun (kilowatt = 1000 watts).

What is one second?  It’s the time it takes to say three words: “Goodbye and Hello.” When you bid farewell to 2016 and roll out the welcome mat to 2017, I hope you’ll take a second to turn a frown into a smile; change a bad impulse into a good one; and to say a simple “God bless you” to the person who is on your heart and in your mind.

Psalm 90:12: Teach us to number our days carefully, so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts