Time: God’s Unheeded Metronome
There is a riddle “what has no wings but flies with the greatest of ease”? The answer should be simple, it is “time”. How does time fly by if it is the same speed it always was? The answer is, it flies by during our life and we see it in the age progression of our children and our self. Time is a rare gem because, like all other gems, it is needed to meet every challenge in life yet, it is wasted and then missed. It was the comedian Richard Bernard (Red) Skelton who said of his character Freddy the Freeloader “He knows time is a glutton. We say we do not have time to do this or that. There is plenty of time. The trick is to apply it. The greatest disease in the world today is procrastination”[1]. Across the world today, there are many events going on some a little higher in priority than others and some a little less yet, what never changes is the flow of time.
Since the dawn of time, God has set the tempo of the metronome and now millions of years later, it still ticks at the same speed. The speed of time never changes; a second in time today is the same as it was on the day of our birth; yet, it passes so quickly that it disappears right before our eyes. Long after our death, the metronome will continue to tick. The life of man changes through the seasons like the chapter of a book or a stanza of a symphony; some are more harried and others calmer. The page nor the stanzas are the sum and total of the whole. The parts tell the story of our life where we were and where God has taken us.
Parents face a very deep challenge on how to effectively use the limited time they have because each of us has compartmented areas of our life that we must juggle. Some of us work at least 8 to the most 16 hours a day and wonder why we have no peace. In an online article, the writer speaks to the word “Sabbath” which is a day of rest; her assertion is that God’s metronome ticks between work and rest[2]. Metronomes are largely used in music which helps the musician know when to play and when to stop so that what comes out of instrument is music, not noise. My assertion is that the metronome is useful in the daily flow of our life if we are willing to listen to it.
Today, parents and kids alike have full-time schedules; some of which are extremely full with no room for even a single breath. This all leads to strife in the home. There is a term “workaholic” in which the person is addicted to working and will do so long into the night. This kind of living creates its own sense of dysfunction and marriage breakdown[3]. Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg address “we as a nation are embroiled in a great civil war to test whether or a not a nation can long endure[4]. This same great battle plays out in the homes across the land and many have broken up because of it and in its wake, lie broken and hurting lives. Once the kids are grown up or a marriage is called “dead”, it is too late to undo what has been done but, you can make every effort today to bring about healing so that whatever is left is made more useful than the time that was lost.
IT is God’s greatest desire for all of mankind to have rest because he developed us and knows what will happen when we forgo it. For example, who has not heard of the term “working to our end”? The idea is that we continue to work long passed our strength to do so; I am guilty of this. My Dad spoke on a few occasions about a conversation between his father and himself how he wanted to retire by age 59 – which he did. My grandfather retorted “Do you think you are better than everyone else”? My dad replied, “Yes I think I am”. My grandfather died rather young mostly because he worked himself to death.
For the past, few months, my pastor has been speaking on “Crossing the Lines” in which I was challenged to cross the line of “where I am in life” and “going in the direction my Father has for me”[5]. Unfortunately, many reach that epiphany way too late; Dr. Allen refers to this as “torment over the “what ifs of life” (Rex Allen). The Devil loves the game of “what ifs” because if we are focused in on “what would my life be like if _____”, we miss what is happening in the present time. I went to a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and I noticed that the bulk of the conversation was centered around the time the person was in the military and little on what was happening in the present time. I think that is a tragedy because so much is missed when we dwell on the glory days of our youth. It was King Hezekiah who at death’s doorstep poured out his heart to God for just a little while longer in the present world instead of the gift that God was giving him (2nd Kings 20).
God’s metronome will keep our bodies, minds, and spirits in sync if we will but listen to him and seek his face. In the book of Matthew, Jesus speaking, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). This was spoken directly after denouncing the towns that so many miracles had been despite the miracles the people refused to listen to the truth (verses 20-24). The Devil, as you should know, is the greatest con artist known to mankind. He will keep you tied up in emotional knots by feeding you endless amounts of garbage thinking and then, in the end, torment you continually until you cave into depression and ultimately an early death. When I think of Judas who was a thief thought “no one knows what I am up to” in the end, tried to get rid of the one person whose very presence caused him tremendous grief without that person having to say a single word.
Some might assert “I am ____ years old there is no hope for me as I am long past my youth and so God cannot use me”. I would say “that is a lie” because God can take the little we yield to him and turn it into more than we ever thought possible; consider the incident of the small meal that was used to feed 5000 people (Luke 9:13-21). God will not instantaneously heal our broken bodies as soon as we come to him anymore then he will mend our failures of yesterday or undo the sins we committed but, if we yield our body, whatever is left of it, he can take it and make it be more useful than all the years prior; thereby healing the broken attitudes and refocusing our life.
May you be blessed today!
[1] Raymond, T. (2012) Red Skelton Quotes. Retrieved http://www.redskelton.info/articles/red-skelton-quotes
[2] Barr C. God’s Metronome (2/19/2016). Retrieved http://www.cherylbarr.org/blog/2016/2/19/static-balance
[3] Flowers C. Biz Journal article: Nothing else (December 20, 1999). Retrieved http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/1999/12/20/editorial2.html
[4] Lincoln, A. The Gettysburg Address. Retrieved https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
[5] Allen, R. Crossing the Line. Retrieved http://changingpointministries.com
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