Deacon Paul Nghia Pham

THE WATERMELON PROBLEM

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” — Psalm 90:12

The youth center was buzzing with noise, but the students quieted as soon as their mentor, Stephen, dimmed the lights and projected a strange video onto the screen.

Two reporters in goggles stood over a watermelon, wrapping rubber bands around it — one by one, slowly, almost absurdly.
The students watched, confused.

Ten rubber bands.
Twenty.
Fifty.
One hundred.
Two hundred.
Four hundred.

Stephen said nothing.
He wanted them to see the point before he explained it.

By the 43rd minute, the pressure had become unbearable — on the watermelon and on the students waiting for something to happen.
Then rubber band number 686 snapped into place and—

BOOM.
The watermelon exploded.

Pink shreds everywhere.
The reporters cheered, wiped off sticky pieces from their goggles, and triumphantly ate the fruit.
Then the video ended.

The students roared with laughter.

“That was awesome!”
“That took forever!”
“What a waste of time!”

Stephen nodded — and that was the moment he had been waiting for.

He stepped forward and said quietly,
“Do you know how many people watched this live?”

A few shrugged.
Someone guessed a hundred thousand.

Stephen shook his head.

“Over three million.”

The room fell silent.

“Three million people,” he repeated slowly,
“spent nearly an hour watching rubber bands tighten around a watermelon…
while wars were happening,
while families were falling apart,
while people were crying in hospitals,
while children were wondering if anyone loved them,
while souls were hungry for God.”

The laughter faded.

Someone whispered,
“That can’t be real.”

But it was.
Stephen held up the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman — the source of the story — and read the concluding line:

“It’s too easy to be distracted from what truly matters and what deserves your limited time.”

Another silence followed — a deeper one.

A student finally asked,
“So what’s the watermelon supposed to represent?”

Stephen answered,
“Anything that distracts you from the life you are actually meant to live.”

He paced slowly in front of the group.

“Think about it.
You get 4,000 weeks if you live to 76.
Most people waste thousands of hours on things that leave their souls empty.”

He gestured toward the dark screen.

“That watermelon is every meaningless distraction we choose
over prayer,
over family,
over purpose,
over healing,
over meaningful work,
over becoming the person God is calling us to be.”

A girl raised her hand timidly.
“That means… we’re wasting our lives one rubber band at a time.”

Stephen nodded firmly.

“That is exactly what it means.”

He walked back to the board and wrote the verse from Psalm 90:12:

“Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Then he turned to them.

“God is not asking you to stop watching videos.
He’s asking you to stop giving your life to them.”

He let that sink in.

“Your time is your life,” he continued.
“What you give your time to is what you become.
And every minute wasted on distractions is a minute stolen from your purpose.”

A young man stared at the verse and whispered,
“My dad always wanted to talk in the evenings, but I kept saying ‘later.’
Later never came.”

Stephen lowered his eyes.
“That’s the cost,” he said softly.
“The people you love.
The opportunities that slip away.
The moments that could have changed your story.
The whispers of God you never heard
because your attention was somewhere else.”

Another student spoke through tears,
“I check my phone before I check on God.”

Stephen’s voice softened.
“It’s not about guilt.
It’s about waking up.
Waking up to the reality that your attention is sacred.
Your days are numbered.
Your purpose is too important to spend your life watching metaphoric watermelons explode.”

He pointed again at the verse.

“Wisdom begins when you realize your days are limited.
Holiness begins when you use them for what matters.
Love begins when you give your presence to the people who need it.
Faith begins when you turn your attention toward God.”

The room was still — deeply, reverently still.

Before dismissing them, Stephen whispered one last sentence — a line the students would remember:

“Don’t let your life become a long video of rubber bands on a watermelon
while your real calling waits untouched in the corner.”

A distracted life is an unlived life.
Wisdom grows when we notice what truly matters
and refuse to waste our limited days
on the things that steal our attention
but never nourish our soul.