Time Keeps On Ticking

Time flies!

Well it sure seems like it does, particularly the older you get.

The weeks and months seem to fly by, and time seems to speed up the busier you are. Each year Christmas seems to approach with the speed of a freight train.

Of course it’s just an illusion. The world is still spinning and orbiting the sun at exactly the same speed that it always has. The second hand on the clock still beats out the same rhythm – tick, tock, tick, tock.

Time doesn’t fly so much as it marches. Relentlessly. Amidst the joys, despite the pain – time marches on.

 

A song my children learnt at Primary School was “My Grandfather’s Clock”, a song written way back in 1876. Some of the words are:

‘Ninety years without slumbering,

Tick, tock, tick, tock,

His life’s seconds numbering,

Tick, tock, tick, tock,

But it stopped short, never to go again

When the old man died’

 

I recently complied for myself a list of ‘Life Goals’ – things I would like to achieve or experience or have influence upon before the clock stops ticking on my life. But on reflection, this big list of challenges and experiences and places to visit is built on the assumption that I have many years left in which to do them, when really, I could fall off the perch tomorrow. Or today for that matter.

The Bible authors seemed to understand the fragility of life. In Psalm 90:12 it says, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.” Grasping the reality that none of us know our future, and how much time we have left on earth, brings about a level of wisdom in our approach to living.

I love this quote I heard recently ‘the only person you need to better than is the person you were yesterday’.

How do I make the most use of my time and become a better man that I was yesterday? For me it’s about this journey of trying to become more and more like Jesus every day. Through reading about Him in the Bible, through communicating with Him through prayer, through meeting together with other fellow Jesus-followers, and through interacting with the world and its people in a way that would honour and bring pleasure to the one I follow.

And I know that if I do that successfully, I will automatically be a better person today that I was yesterday. Because I’m emulating the most perfect human being who ever lived. (No wonder – he was the Son of God!)

Ultimately I want to have made a difference in the world, and by giving love is the best way I can think of to do that. Radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing, without-prejudice love. Just like Jesus did, and does.

No matter what phase of life we’re in, it’s something we all can do. As the seconds of our life go ticking relentlessly by, may we each learn to make the most of our time, and gain a heart of wisdom, through the relentless giving of love.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Flying Kites

 

Across the road from my house is a large oval, and it is a great place for flying kites.

Now this is one skill I have never been able to master (one among many I might add). I have trouble launching the kite into the air, and even more trouble getting it to stay in the air. Lots of running, winding, more running, more winding, and eventually a lost temper and a trudge home.

So I admire good kite flyers, and I love to sit and watch them manoeuvre their kites through the air, allowing them to catch the wind and dip and dive on the air currents. Kites can come in all different shapes and sizes and designs, but in the hands of someone with skill, they seem to take off and hover and fly with what looks to me like ease.

As I watched a kite flying recently, I thought of it as a metaphor for my life, and probably for most of our lives. One minute we can be soaring – flying through life with the wind filling our sails. Success, joy, great relationships, sense of peace – whatever it is, we seem to be right up there, with life going great.

But it doesn’t take much for it all to come crashing down to earth. Whether it be sickness, or loss, harsh words or just a run of misfortune, we come a-crashing down, and feeling like having hit the bottom, we have to pick ourselves up and start all over again, aiming to once again catch the breeze and rise.

This was certainly the pattern of my life. I’d be cruising along until I’d do something stupid, or make a bad choice, or just suffer some misfortune, and I’d be brought back to earth with a painful thud. But then I placed my life in the hands of a skilled ‘kite-flyer’ ie God. With God pulling the strings, I’ve had far less crashes, and I feel as if my life is propped up by a Divine wind that keeps me flying. Sure I take a dip and a dive every now and then, but something pulls me back up without having to endure a painful crash.

This summer, as you see a kite flying in the air, may you think about who is pulling the strings of your life. Is it you? If so, do you keep falling, crashing? Let go – give your life over to God, and maybe with your life in the hands of a skilled kite-controller, you’ll fly higher than you ever have before.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington