Wednesday, August 29, 2018

“Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?” (Matthew 6:27, New Living Translation)

                 I immediately thought of these words from Jesus after reading the Sunday comic strip, Frazz – a strip about the encounters of first graders with the adults in their world, mostly teachers.

                One of the boys is drinking a cup of coffee, explaining that he had heard that coffee can add a few days to your life. “And I could use a few before summer vacation ends.” One of the adults explains to him that he doesn’t get to choose where those extra days go and that they go “at the end.” The lad is very disappointed. “That’s not when I want to use them.”

                Many of us can share the sentiment. I, for one, don’t understand why the ancients added an extra day in a leap year on to February, the cruelest, winter month; why not add one day to July, in the summer? But I digress…

                Lots of people wish they had more time for one thing or another in their lives. Some complain that there are not enough hours in the day to do all that is necessary. Others find it hard to juggle the hours for family events, work, activities, appointments and various schedules and agendas. Just ask many a busy parent! Some wish they had more time to enjoy life a little more. Some people have bucket lists of the things they would like to accomplish before they pass this mortal coil. There is not enough time to get to them all. In a few cases, like sky diving, race car driving, etc., these things might actually shorten your days, but, hey, it’s your life. Sometimes, my bucket list includes just successfully getting out of bed in the morning. To each their own.

                There is a lot of popular advice about how we live each day.

                “Live one day at a time.”

                “Live like today is the first day of your life.”

                “Live to day like it is the last day of your life.”

                “Live and let live.”

                “Eat, drink and be merry; for tomorrow there might not be any.”

                “Don’t worry; be happy!”

                But no matter, none of us can actually make any day have 25 hours. None of us can add a 13 o’clock to our watches. None of us can stretch time, manipulate time, freeze time, hold off time, delay time, ignore time, or add a single moment to our lives.

It’s not that I am a fatalist or believe that all life is pre-determined or even being passive when it comes to time. Time is one of those sacred mysteries with which we must come to terms. We are mortals within the context of time passing. There are times when I wish God had come up with a better idea than old age or helped us better deal with it and our human fragility. “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty. But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)

Be that as it may, it is never too late to make the best out of whatever we time we still have. To fill our days with worry, fear and angst only depletes our existence and sacrifices the beauty and meaning of our lives to the demons and hobgoblins which bewitch us into despair, pessimism, hopelessness and fruitlessness. With worry we surrender to the dictates of time instead of giving ourselves permission to be free and enjoy the days we have.

The gift of faith in Jesus Christ is that we find trust, assurances, strength, joy and hope to make the most of our time, to live each and every day with confidence, love, peace and the ability to meet life and therefore time head on, to live not with regrets nor with lost opportunities, but to engage life with a vibrant spirit of expectation and anticipation of what is coming next, be it on earth or as it will be in heaven. “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” (Lamentations 3:22 -23)

Dale