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“Spring forward, Fall back.” It’s the easiest way to remember how to set our clocks for Daylight Saving Time (DST). The second Sunday of March, we roll our clocks ahead one hour and the first Sunday of November we roll them back one hour.

It’s actually called Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time, because we are saving daylight (singular, not plural). Congress enacted legislation in 1966, amending it in 2007 to the present schedule. According to History.com, Hawaii and Arizona are the only two states who do not participate -with the exception of Arizona’s Navajo Nation. Worldwide, approximately 70 countries utilize Daylight Saving Time. Japan is the only industrialized country that has never introduced it.

Studies suggest Daylight Saving Time saves very little energy. A Department of Energy study in 2008 found it saves about 0.5 percent of the nation’s electricity per day. A 2018 analysis of 44 studies in various countries found a 0.34% decrease in energy consumption during DST. With the newer LED lighting that uses less electricity that number would likely decrease if that study were conducted today. So it’s not so much about energy savings as people wanting to take advantage of more daylight in the evening.

Benjamin Franklin, known for his sayings such as “early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,” was the first to think of the idea in 1784. England and Germany were among the first countries to change the time, around 1916. During World War I and World War II, the U.S. observed Daylight Saving Time to conserve energy for the war effort.

Thomas Edison once said, “Time is not a commodity that can be stored for future use. It must be invested hour by hour, or else it’s gone forever.” Of course, time doesn’t change; the way we utilize time does. Each of us has the same amount (86,400 seconds every day).

But, did you know the Bible records two events when time actually changed? When King Hezekiah was near death, he prayed and God added 15 years to his life. (Read Isaiah 38.) As a sign of his healing, God told Hezekiah the shadow on the sundial would go backward 10 degrees. Some scholars think it could have been from 15 minutes to half an hour.

Joshua 10:7-14 tells about the time when the Amorites came to do battle against Israel. So their leader, Joshua, prayed and the sun stood still until Israel’s enemy was defeated. The sun did not go down about a whole day. “And there was no day like that before or after it” (verse 14).

The Bible also says that one day (yet to come), time shall be no more. We will each stand before God and give an answer for the way we spent our lifetimes. On that day, our time will be up and there will be no changing our eternal destination.

Benjamin Franklin warned, “Do not squander time, for it is the stuff of which life is made.” Let’s use our time wisely. As Jesus said, “Let us do the work God has called us to do while it is day” (John 9:7).

— Jan White has compiled a collection of her columns in her book, “Everyday Faith for Daily Life.”