Tip of My Iceberg

I look forward to this day more than I do St. Patrick’s Day (and I do have some Irish in me) and my birthday.

The end of Daylight Saving Time when we fall back an hour and gain a little more sleep. This is more satisfying than losing an hour in the spring, when springing forward we lost those precious sixty minutes.

An hour is no big deal, right? Wrong. I feel cheated for several weeks after the beginning of this spring ritual, imagining what I could do if I had that hour back.

When my kids were small, it messed with their body clocks every spring. “Why go to bed when it was still light outside? Can’t we stay up a little bit longer till it gets dark?” They couldn’t sleep when it was still light. All the blackout curtains in the world didn’t help at all.

We all recognize the value of time–it’s the gift given every morning when we rise and we choose how we’ll invest that gift on any given day. The American poet, Carl Sandburg, said it best: “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Those are powerful words, especially in a day and age where we blithely allow others to determine how our time is spent and what we should consider valuable. We scroll through screens, watch reels, read posts, all wanting to know what other people are doing. How much time do we waste doing that?

The late Bill Keane, an American cartoonist known for his comic “The Family Circus”, saw the reality of how we understand time. “Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” We can’t rewrite history, so fretting about what happened yesterday changes nothing. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so we can plan for it, knowing our plans may be for nothing.

Today is the gift we’re given. How will we spend this day, the same 24-hour present each of us is given?

Jesus understood the value of time. He had three years of ministry on earth where He intended to introduce the grace and forgiveness of an Almighty God to the world. The Jews at that time were focused on the strict adherence to the law and the need for sacrifice when the law was broken–which was all the time. The Romans and other Gentiles worshiped a plethora of gods. In three brief years, Jesus introduced forgiveness of sins through His sacrifice because of God’s love for us. Unheard of back then.

Not fully understood now.

What Jesus did in that brief time is still impacting the world today, more than two thousand years later.

We need to be mindful of how we spend our time for no one knows how much time we really have. Ephesians 5:15-16 tells us, “So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.” It doesn’t take a genius to point out that life is challenging now. Being wise with our use of time is the gift we give ourselves.

King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11: “For everything there is a season, a time for EVERY activity under heaven….Yet God has made everything beautiful for ITS OWN TIME. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” We each have time to do what we need to do. And an eternity with God for those who know Him.

I may not like this change of time twice a year, but it’s my responsibility to live each day to the fullest. To make my time count here. Not for just me, but for all those I love.

After all, we’re all on the clock.

photo courtesy of Jon Tyson on Unsplash