Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The hand rhythmically moves in a cadence that demands precision and relentless pressure – constantly pushing forward.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. What is, is now gone. And what will be, is now. But as suddenly as it finds itself in the now, it quickly is shoved back to make way for the new.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The sleight-of-hand tactician has a way of speeding up when you desperately desire it to slow down. And in the moments where you beg it to move rapidly, it decides to gear down to an ever grinding halt.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. If you steward it wisely, good things emerge. If you consume it like there is an endless supply, regret pounces.
Time is Swift
The older I get, the more I realize the incredible responsibility I have to steward the time placed in my hands. The reality is etched on my heart and consumes my thinking. Because of that, there is an urgency that surfaces as I grasp how swift time truly is.
A.W. Tozer put it so well in his devotional classic The Knowledge of the Holy:
The days of the years of our lives are few and swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is simply not time enough to think, to become, to perform what the constitution of our nature indicates we are capable of.
How are you going to maximize your time?
Today, you have an opportunity to embrace the rhythm of time, maximizing each moment and savoring its fleeting, yet constant gift. So what can you do? Here are several ideas to engage your mind and move you into action.
Send a message to someone you haven’t connected with in a while. Offer words of encouragement and thankfulness for what they mean to you.
Instead of grabbing dinner to go, grab the people around you and enjoy the journey to make your own dinner. Even if the oven destroys your well-intentioned recipe, the memories will last a lifetime.
Crawl into your child’s bed and tell a long, meandering, story that engages the imagination and illuminates the mind. (Yes, even if you are exhausted and don’t feel like it. Shove the excuses away. They take up too much time anyway.)
Turn off your phone, well make it all the phones, and eat dinner at the table enjoying the rambling conversation from a day filled with ups, downs, twists, and turns.
Go for a walk and focus on God’s majestic creation.
Sit on a porch swing allowing the cadence of the weather-worn chain to fill the silence. Focus on the many things that you are thankful for in life. And if the area of ‘thankfulness” is a deserted landscape, focus on God’s constant presence in your life. There is quite enough to be thankful for there.
Start, right now, on that dream – that project – that goal – that is bracketed with “one day”. And choose to begin now.
Share your chaotic, doubt confused, question driven, guilt riddled, faith with a friend that needs to hear about a God, who so loved the world, that he gave . . .
Reach out to someone with a heart of unending grace and unconditional love and pave the way for a restoration to emerge.
Time is Precious
If you have ever lost someone who was extremely close to you, you know that time is precious. Through his loss, God has taught me more than I could ever attempt to articulate and express. God has expanded my heart and intensified the urgency around how I live my life. What I fully realize is that time is something I have a choice to maximize and embrace its ability to suddenly cease.
Time. You have it now. But you don’t know if you will have tomorrow. So live your life, now, with passion, reflecting God’s unrelenting love in every moment.