In the early 1800s Americans had little practical need for clocks. Most people still lived on farms. They got up with the sun and worked as long as the daylight held out.

Even in towns and villages the working people, mostly craftsmen and merchants, had little need to know the exact time. Only the well-to-do owned clocks -- more a sign of social status than a practical necessity.

A Connecticut entrepreneur and salesman named Eli Terry changed that. By 1844 an English visitor to America wrote: "Wherever we have been in Kentucky, in Indiana, in Illinois, in Missouri, and in every dell of Arkansas, and in cabins where there was not a chair to sit on, there was sure to be a Connecticut clock."

Terry, it seems, recognized a psychological need. Some colonial leaders had attempted to dictate social status by legislation. But the common people resisted, refusing to "stay in their place." Terry recognized that a farmer and his family, just by owning a clock, could feel as if they had moved up in the world.

By building his clocks with wooden movements, Terry could sell his clocks at half the price of clocks made with brass movements. Later Terry took over an old mill and invented machinery to mass produce his clocks. This enabled him to get his price down still further. But Terry took one step more by using the backing of Yankee peddlers, Connecticut entrepreneurs who had a well-developed marketing system.

These salesmen traveled hundreds of miles by wagon, stopping at farms and in villages to sell Connecticut made products. Terry enlisted them to sell his clocks.

According to historian David Freeman Hawke, the peddler used three main sales techniques to market Terry's clocks: 1) He sold the idea that owning a clock would give the family social prestige. 2) He overcame objections with a "buy now and pay later" offer. 3) As a last resort the traveling salesman would leave a clock with the farm family at no charge or obligation. A month or so later, on his return trip, he would usually find the entire family to be enchanted with the clock, and in the end he made the sale.

Take a room full of nothing, not one molecule of matter, not even one sub-atomic particle -- a complete vacuum, a void. The size of the room really doesn't matter. It can be the size of a mini self-storage unit, the size of a Sam's Club, or even the size of the universe.

Now watch the empty room until something happens -- a sound, a sight, a shaking, a stirring. How long will it take for your room full of nothing to do something? You better have some patience because you'll have an endless wait. Nothing plus nothing always equals nothing. Nothing never produces anything. Nothing always does nothing. Yawn.

So how is it that a great many highly educated human beings seriously believe and proudly promote the idea that nothing plus nothing equals everything? Presupposition.

If you presuppose that matter and energy are all that exist, then logically, matter and energy had to either always exist or to somehow self-generate in a room (or space) full of nothing. If matter and/or energy always existed, then then there is no origin to explain. The room was never empty.

Modern science says that the room was almost empty. They say that the room full of nothing contained a blob of pre-existing stuff that blew up and started a process that randomly produced a universe strewn with stuff and at least one planet teeming with life. They even believe that their own thought and rationality are the result of time and chance. (Isn't the idea of randomly produced rationality an oxymoron? Show me a rational treatise that a computer produced by randomly printing letters.)

There is another presupposition that has been held by the majority of humans (both inteligencia and unlearned) through out human history: Someone or somethng exists that is beyond matter and energy and this rational Being or inteligent force intentionally produced everything. In otherwords, there is Someone or something outside the room who filled the room full of nothing with everything.

Personally, I don't think the room full of nothing could have filled itself up with stuff and life and order and logic. The existance of this room full of beauty, inspiration, and amazingly intricate detail that surrounds us, shouts out in splendor for us to seek its Source not in time and chance and accident, but in creative attention and in loving intention.

The "now" that existed when you began to read this sentence has gone forever!

Whew! That moment sure flew by quickly. Meanwhile the clock ticks on, counting time moment by moment. But counting time is not nearly as important as making time count.

What really matters is not how much time has passed in your life, but how you have passed your time!

So what is the best use of your time? I like what Oliver Wendell Holmes said: "The great purpose of life is to live it." So while you focused on trying to make a living, please don't forget to make a quality life for yourself.

Here are five powerful ways to make your time count:

1) Enjoy your life by enjoying the present moment. Although small children know how to make life fun, adults often forget. Many people pursue happiness in the future and miss the abundant, simple pleasures in the now.

Josh Billings had the right idea. He said: "Laugh every time you feel tickled, and laugh once in awhile anyhow."

Thackeray said: "A good laugh is sunshine in a house."

2) Find a dream and pursue it. Discover what you really want out of life and go after it! But avoid the path of least persistence!

As Walter Bagehot said: "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." So go for it, no matter what "they" say.

3) Sincerely love people and treat them well. Give people all the love and kindness that you have. Then an amazing amount of love and kindness will come back to you.

4) Drop your regrets. Live in the present, not in the past. Avoid self-tormenting language. "I should have . . ." "I could have . . ." "I wish I had . . ." "If only . . ."

5) Learn to like yourself. People who feel good about themselves are the most positive and productive people in the world. They never waste time feeling sorry for themselves. So learn to get along well with yourself, and it will be much easier to make your time here count. Time is flying by! Are you using it or abusing it?

"The hearts of little children are pure, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss." --Black Elk

"I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man He would have made me so in the first place." --Sitting Bull

"The Great Spirit made the flowers, the streams, the pines, the cedars - He takes care of them. He takes care of me, waters me, feeds me." --Pete Catches, Sioux

"May the warm winds of Heaven blow softly upon your house. May the Great Spirit bless all who enter there." --Cherokee blessing

As Europeans first came to America they discovered people who believed in and worshiped "The Great Spirit," an all-powerful, intelligent, bodiless, personal Being. Funny thing, a great many of those early colonists brought a book with them that also told about the Great Spirit -- the Holy Spirit.

Nowadays, however, you don't hear or read much about the Holy Spirit. I wonder when the last time the Holy Spirit was mentioned in the Tennessean (Nashville's newspaper). Maybe it was when Sam Jones preached fiery sermons in the brand new Ryman Auditorium.

Have you ever heard the Holy Spirit mentioned in a TV drama or sitcom? I don't think so.

Even many churches give the Holy Spirit scant mention and even less attention. This is unfortunate.

Meanwhile the great Holy Spirit is busy revealing Himself and communicating His love to multitudes of human beings. Someone you know -- a family member, a co-worker, a neighbor, a friend, a store clerk, a classmate -- has had a profound experience and an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit.

In fact, you, yourself, have probablly heard the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. Often the Spirit's voice is confused with our conscience, with our religious upbringing, or with our own thinking. Sometimes we dodge the Spirit's speaking through rationalizations or denial.

Many people are unaware that there is a living, active, and present Holy Spirit seeking to communicate with them. Maybe that's because we have substituted religious affiliation, ritual, doctrine, or tradition for ongoing personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit beckons within individual human hearts: "I love you. I'll set you free. Listen to My voice and follow Me."

Should those who claim to be followers of the tortured One support and encourage torture -- systematic physical cruelty to others? Apparently many people who call themselves Christian think so.

Rencently The Tennessean stated: "A new poll from the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed believe that torture is often or sometimes justified. The poll also found that 44 percent of all regular churchgoers — regardless of race or denomination — believe that torture is often or sometimes justified."

This is frightening. If people can find one reason to torture then they can find another reason to torture. If people advocate torturing because of a physical threat, why not because of a financial threat or an information leak threat or an immigration threat or a racial threat or a doctrinal threat?

How can people who claim to believe in a living, supernatural, loving God resort to torturing others? Isn't the act of torture itself a denial of Christianity -- a denial of Jesus' teaching, a denial of His love, a denial of His power to protect us?

Yet, the use of torture by people who claim to be Christians is not uncommon. The Inquisition is an example. Even on American soil torture was commonly practiced (by men who proclaimed themselves Christians) against men and women who they forcibly held in life-long bondage. People were tortured for trying to escape to freedom, for not working hard enough, for resisting the theft of their children, and even for reading the Bible. If you want to read some heart-rending stories, read first hand accounts about the torture of American slaves.

Torture is evil. Christians are called to resist evil, not with coercion or violence, but with faith, love, character, honesty, prayer, truth, compassion, and by treating others like we want to be treated. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." Where is there room for torture in the New Testament concept of Christianity?