Day 3 - My times

I have a tiny clock on the bottom right hand side of my laptop screen - and I have to confess that I dont ever give it much thought.  I also wear a watch and have a clock feature on the television and on my phone - there are plenty of ways to tell the time these days.

Except that the clock on my laptop has decided to show an hour behind the correct time.  😊   Which caught my attention and got me thinking about this thing we call time.

St Johns Church this morning

We live by the clock.   In Jesus day there were no watches.  No clocks as we know them.   Sundials were used to give a rough idea of the twelve hours of the day ( and four watches of the night) but different communities used different calendars, some lunar, others solar so there was no conformity or agreement.  It must have been a totally different way of life.  In Jesus day people lived by the sun and moon, the seasons and the natural rhythms of bodies and lifestyles.  They ate when they were hungry and when there was food available.  We eat three times a day and most of us are obese.   They slept when darkness fell and woke when the sun rose.  We watch television till the wee small hours and wonder why we are underslept and stressed so much of the time.  They sowed seed when the weather was fair and gathered crops when they were ripe and ready.  Religious festivals were organised around these seasonal events as celebrations of the ability of man to work with God in nature.   And people walked everywhere.  Which took time.  And energy.  ( I'll bet they were all alot fitter in Jesus day than most of us are now.)

The Psalmist says
But I trust in you, Lord;
    I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hands;
    deliver me from the hands of my enemies,
    from those who pursue me.

In those days people had a sense that God owned time and that He was in charge of the days allotted and how they were spent.  I fear our watches have lulled us into the belief that we are in control of time and that somehow, by being able to measure the seconds as they pass, we own them.

We shall never own time - or be able to see into the next minute or second.  God has designed things this way in order that we should be dependent on HIM.  ( Acts 1:7  -  He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. )

We say things like ' how are you going to spend your holidays?' or  ' what are you going to do on your day off?'    But our holidays and our days off are not ours.  They are God's.  Because time belongs to him.

Age to age He stands, time is in His hands, the Lion and the Lamb.

God is eternal.  He stands outside time looking in on us walking forwards on our linear timelines.  He sees where we are going and what is coming next.  He can alter our destinies should He so desire.  He can direct our paths and knows the number of our days.  We are temporal and limited.  He is eternal and boundless.  And He is also GOOD.   Let us with the Psamist say  ' my times are in Your hands'.   Because in His hands is a safe place to be.