This devotion is contributed by Evelyn Defina, who is a member of 10.30am and serves us with music & dance, and in discipleship and women’s ministry. Blogs usually require 3 minutes of distracted reading. This is a devotion. Cut out 15 minutes and make yourself a cuppa. Slow….down…..
Getting Along with Time
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1
We are in a unique season now – not so unique when looking at history, and not so unique for those of our elderly folk who have lived through the Spanish flu and the world wars. But for our time, it is.
We will get through this season, and as Ecclesiastes 3 shows us, we will do so as we see birth and death, planting and uprooting, weeping and laughing, tearing and mending, keeping and tossing, listening and speaking, and even embracing and not embracing – how’s that for a wise word on social distancing?!
We will get through.
Certainly Time has redefined itself in our lives. It has redefined itself from endless meaninglessness to a deeper and more captivated relationship between it and ourselves.
How are you and Time getting along? From 1-10, how would you score it? 10 being the best.
I imagine each day is different.
Prayer Time
It is for me, but there has been one constant. My prayer time with God.
I’m sure the passage from Mt 6: 25-34 is well known to you –
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
We are in Autumn. It’s the season marked by the falling of leaves from trees, the colours changing, the days becoming shorter, and the air becoming crisper. Leaves are described as going into their winter rest. Autumn is a time to collect seeds, to care and nurture for the soil, and to have a time of reflection of what worked well in our garden and what we could plant for the next spring.
Collecting, caring, nurturing, reflecting, preparing.
As Mt 6:34 points out very clearly, there is nothing like Today and when today passes, it’s gone forever.
Thinking about your relationship with Time- will you let it pass into a meaningless void where you can’t recall what you did or how you spent it, or will you seek to build your relationship with it by bringing such a depth of meaning that you will go to bed at night and say – that was a day to remember.
We are in an Autumn season of prayer – a gift from God to collect ourselves into a place and space of submission to Him, seeking Him out to spend the Time He has given us with Him. To allow Him to care for us, to nurture us in his Word, to deepen our reflection in His ways and thoughts, and to pray for the needs of many, helping to prepare for the harvest to come – in our church, and in those who will come to know the Lord Jesus through this unique time. As Today passes, we can be thankful and give praise to Him who has shown great mercy, faithfulness and love to us.
Remembering that when the season passes we will rejoice in the Lord, we will reflect on His hand upon us, His provision, His sustenance, His patient love, and in that remembering, we will continue to seek Him and His righteousness.
Let’s not then let go of our season of prayer, but instead seek to deepen it so that when the new season arrives, we will continue being with our Lord in prayer, using Time as He has given to nourish our souls. What a gift.
A Final Word
I leave you with a passage from Habakkuk 3:17-19 which has been my constant over these weeks and months:
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.
19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.