Lenten Ponderings— The Clock
Yesterday was my birthday, but I’d rather not be reminded that “time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future.” I imagine those of you who are more chronologically gifted than I might be laughing at me and my musings in this direction—please keep it up! I need to be reminded of the silliness of these thoughts!
I was reading over Ecclesiastes this morning—you know, the one with that memorable section about there being a time for everything under the sun. And right after that most memorable section is a wonderful line—“God has made everything beautiful for its own time” (Eccl. 3: 11), and in verse 12, the further wisdom, “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy do good while they live.” Ecclesiastes actually has some version of that line four or five times through the book, highlighting the wisdom to enjoy the work of your hands, to do good, and to honor God and keep His commandments. Almost too simple. I guess sometimes we just think too much.
There’s a clock in my office whose job it is to mark the time in a quiet reminder that time keeps moving on. But this clock has never worked since the day I got it (maybe that’s why it was on clearance?). It’s a cute little clock with silhouettes of both a batting cat and a mouse hanging onto the pendulum. At times like my birthday, a part of me would want to be like that clock and make time stand still. But I was reminded just recently that despite it’s being broken, the time it keeps IS right—twice a day at least. What a price tag though, to keep time standing still—to be broken and only in the right twice a day.
I guess if we want to be in the right more than only twice a day, and find the beautiful that is in God’s timing, then we’ve got to keep moving and embracing the different facets of beauty that come with the different seasons of our lives. So go ahead, laugh at me in my silliness, but make sure I hear you and your laughter to be reminded of the full range of beauty God provides!
I learned a song years ago that’s been floating through my head this morning based on that line of God’s bringing beauty through time—“In His time, in His time, He makes all things beautiful in His time. Lord my life to you I bring, may each song I have to sing, be to You a lovely thing, in Your time.” My sense of time may be a bit off—but when I keep putting my time in God’s hands, He makes all things and all times beautiful, when it is His time.
No matter the time, or in all the time—Just keep being a blessing—Pastor Jim