Keeping Our Eyes on the "Time"

If you’re into sports at all, you know that the events that have a running clock can be the most nerve-wracking to watch. Why? Well, it’s because at the end of a close game, the clock can be a team’s friend or enemy, right? The team in the lead wants the clock to keep moving, while the one behind wants to stop it and for all practical purposes slow it down.

And when we hear the announcers say, “They can no longer stop the clock,” everyone following the losing team feels their heartrate go up even more. Time is running out if they’re going to win.

Yes, sometimes we’re happy when time moves quickly, say during a boring program or speech, waiting for a loved one during surgery or when we can’t sleep and we’re just lying there in the darkness.

However, in other settings, we want the time to slow down such as when our time with normally distant family or special friends is winding down and we’re going to have to separate again for who knows how long? Or it might be during a wonderful vacation when we know we’ll be headed home in just hours.

As many of you know I recently travelled to the other side of the world for a special conference. But in both directions my itinerary took me between Newark (can you go there enough?) and Dubai, UAE. The flight time, though slightly different in each direction, was between 14 and 15 hours!

I was sitting in the first exit row of an economy section of a 777 so I could see the LED screens in the back of the next section. While I was on one of these long segments, there was a guy near the back of the section ahead of me on the end who left his screen on the Flight Path option.

And in big numbers, it showed the remaining time of the flight.

I tried not to look but it was hard to miss those numbers moving SO slowly from 13:20 to 12:55  to 12:10 to . . . ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Dude, put a movie on or turn your screen off. I can’t imagine how slowly time must have passed by for that guy. Thankfully I was able to eat and watch a couple of movies with a short nap here and there.

But you see, time doesn’t really speed up or slow down. It’s all about perception and what’s going on around us. But, as someone most likely in the later months and years of life, I  to remind you to not ignore the time that you have.

No, don’t live in the extremes. Don’t try to fill every minute with something productive and seemingly essential. Often the best and most memorable times are those when there is no schedule, just people enjoying each other’s company, making memories as families or even walking through challenges together.

And yet, don’t go the other way and assume you’ve got all the time in the world like that plane ride must have felt to that man.

Here are a few things I want to encourage you to re-visit where you are, at your age, based on your experiences, goals and dreams. Determine if you need to set some time aside to do any of these things now or at least sooner than you thought.

For example, things you want to teach and experience with your kids including truths about your faith, relationship with God, walk with Christ, practical life lessons, etc. such as life skills and opportunities. And maybe these won’t be practical once they’re on their own.

Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Don’t look the other way or just assume you’ll get to them.

Places you want to go with your spouse, good friends or children. You can’t do them all but how about a few.

Personal and family goals for growth, development and preparation for the future. Language training, serving on a missions trip, helping someone in your neighborhood.

Ways you can serve others through your church, community, work, etc.

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

And ask  yourself, what are some things that take up so much of our time that don’t deserve that, that are just us filling time that could be used for far better and far more important things.

You may not be an Aerosmith fan, but they have a song title that pretty much describes a great goal, even if it’s not totally possible. I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing. I’m sure that’s true for most of you listening or reading the blog version. We don’t want to miss the important things but we often do because of what we let become urgent even though not everything is urgent.

But we’ll have to make more room for the things that really matter, that we don’t want to miss. We’ll have to say ‘NO’ to what only appears urgent and then start on our list of things that will ultimately fulfill us because they’re what God prepared in advance for us to do.

And if we keep putting off the things that really count, the only thing we’ll have left is to “Dream On.”