September 20

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It’s About Time

Posted by on September 20, 2019 in Being Human | Leave a comment

 

 

I love the lazy feel of these pictures. In a time when things are so rushed, they make me want to sit for a bit, ponder the day, and enjoy the beauty of creation. They awake the urge for childlike dawdling and play. When we do such as this, it is called “taking time.” I wonder why we say “taking”? I would rather “receive time.” It sounds much gentler.

Speaking of time, we all have the same amount of it—24 hours a day; 168 hours a week. We have no choice in how much time we’ve been given but we do have a choice on what we do with it.

God’s gift to you is time, your gift to God is how you use it. So, I ask: how am I using the gift of time that God has given me? Well, if you ask most people about their relationship with time, they tell they don’t have enough. The mantra is, “I’m busy!” Or like the t-shirt I got my hockey-playing son when he was in high school. Often his answer to an invitation was, “I can’t. I have hockey.” How many have I’ve said “I can’t. I have __________” (fill in the blank). And it seems a bit ironic that in the day and age when everything is faster and more convenient we get farther and farther behind.

I need to remind myself: God doesn’t call me to be busy; he calls me to be fruitful.

I know I’m busy, but I don’t know if I’m fruitful. Being fruitful requires one to stop, rest, and spend time with God, not just go-go-go. It may be helpful to divide time into four quadrants and try to spend a little time in each:

  1. Time for God;
  2. Time for Rest;
  3. Time for Relationships;
  4. Time for Work.

Being Human connection: This kind of concrete advice helps me because I am not good at balance. I hope it helps you too if you find yourself wanting to “receive” more time.

Featured art: “On the Green Bank, Sanary,” and “Pierre Labasque with a Small Boat,” both by Henri Lebasque (1865–1937). He was a Post-Impressionist artist, known as the “painter of joy and light.” In his later career, he was championed by critics for the intimacy of his themes and the joy in his forms and palette. I love the easiness of his paintings. I hope you do too.