As Autumn term kicks in and people are getting so busy I’ve been thinking this week about time.
About how many profess to be too busy to have time for certain things yet still find time to waste and procrastinate.
And how others say they have ‘too much time on their hands’, often filled with depressive thoughts.
And how easy it seems to let life and circumstances just drag us along from one day’s surviving to the next. Meanwhile time marches on!
I’m thinking we should try to be more deliberate, more intentional in our use of such time over which we have control. Like we should make time to go for that walk and notice creation, savour our food instead of gulp it down, arrange that coffee date, listen to our children, help more people feel they matter.
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes is an interesting read, sober but wise. The writer was an older Solomon, having lived life on Earth to the full, accomplishing great things and enjoying every imaginable pleasure. He writes those famous lines about a ‘time and season for everything under heaven’.
He draws his work to a conclusion in ch12 with a solemn bottom line, advising his readers to remember our Maker now, before we get old and die! It is true we never know what a day, week, or year may bring. An illness, an accident, a financial or relational crisis and everything can be very different, very quickly! We should enjoy the life we’ve been given while we can with gratitude and reverence, reflecting on this – God assesses our lives and we will one day be called to account for the choices we have made.
A central belief of Christianity has always been that Jesus, the risen, reigning Son of God will return to Earth one day to ‘judge the living and the dead’. The New Testament pictures it like a harvest of the whole Earth, some being gathered safely for reward, others for everlasting punishment. So it matters how we live! The divine guidelines are there for us if we’ll take time to read them in the 10 Commandments and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Exodus 20 and Matthew chs 5,6+7)
Have we a few moments before we must get back to whatever is next up today?
Why not text an encouraging message to someone we care about? Perhaps we could step outside and taste the air, or glimpse the sky, or just look for the music, life and colour that are inevitably there?
Then we could pray, even just a few words, thanking our Maker for the day He has given and that we’re alive enough to enjoy it. Most likely we should include a humble sorry for our foul-ups and ask forgiveness in Jesus’ name. And then invite the Lord to be our Guest/Companion for the rest of this day, guiding and prompting us to live it with wisdom, compassion and joy.
Our time to spend ‘under the sun’ is limited, so we need to start managing it more wisely. That begins with ‘looking up’ and seeking God’s grace in Christ.
'This is the day that the Lord has made,’
Let us ‘rejoice and be glad in it.’!
A musical memory this week from the Seekers in 1967:
About how many profess to be too busy to have time for certain things yet still find time to waste and procrastinate.
And how others say they have ‘too much time on their hands’, often filled with depressive thoughts.
And how easy it seems to let life and circumstances just drag us along from one day’s surviving to the next. Meanwhile time marches on!
I’m thinking we should try to be more deliberate, more intentional in our use of such time over which we have control. Like we should make time to go for that walk and notice creation, savour our food instead of gulp it down, arrange that coffee date, listen to our children, help more people feel they matter.
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes is an interesting read, sober but wise. The writer was an older Solomon, having lived life on Earth to the full, accomplishing great things and enjoying every imaginable pleasure. He writes those famous lines about a ‘time and season for everything under heaven’.
He draws his work to a conclusion in ch12 with a solemn bottom line, advising his readers to remember our Maker now, before we get old and die! It is true we never know what a day, week, or year may bring. An illness, an accident, a financial or relational crisis and everything can be very different, very quickly! We should enjoy the life we’ve been given while we can with gratitude and reverence, reflecting on this – God assesses our lives and we will one day be called to account for the choices we have made.
A central belief of Christianity has always been that Jesus, the risen, reigning Son of God will return to Earth one day to ‘judge the living and the dead’. The New Testament pictures it like a harvest of the whole Earth, some being gathered safely for reward, others for everlasting punishment. So it matters how we live! The divine guidelines are there for us if we’ll take time to read them in the 10 Commandments and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Exodus 20 and Matthew chs 5,6+7)
Have we a few moments before we must get back to whatever is next up today?
Why not text an encouraging message to someone we care about? Perhaps we could step outside and taste the air, or glimpse the sky, or just look for the music, life and colour that are inevitably there?
Then we could pray, even just a few words, thanking our Maker for the day He has given and that we’re alive enough to enjoy it. Most likely we should include a humble sorry for our foul-ups and ask forgiveness in Jesus’ name. And then invite the Lord to be our Guest/Companion for the rest of this day, guiding and prompting us to live it with wisdom, compassion and joy.
Our time to spend ‘under the sun’ is limited, so we need to start managing it more wisely. That begins with ‘looking up’ and seeking God’s grace in Christ.
'This is the day that the Lord has made,’
Let us ‘rejoice and be glad in it.’!
A musical memory this week from the Seekers in 1967:
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