Devotions with Pastor Fran

Time
Proverbs 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

Have you looked at the calendar lately? Its only 16 days until Thanksgiving and then in another 30 days it will be Christmas! Wow where has this year gone? Time just keeps marching on.

I find myself on a constant run trying to do all the things I want to accomplish before the holidays hit. I just helped one daughter move into a new home and getting ready to help another move from Arizona. I have family coming for Thanksgiving and gifts to make for Christmas and I work 40 plus hours a week and I have things to order if I want them by Christmas and I have a new great grandson born yesterday that I want to hold, and snow is coming so I have to get things organized for that and my car needs winterizing and my house needs winterizing and I have to do…and I have to do, and I…, and the list goes on.

Ever feel like that? Then it hit me on Friday when a good friend I know got up and went about her day and never made it home to her earthly home but without a good bye to anyone she went home to be with Jesus. Just like that things that she needed to do didn’t matter anymore. Her time on earth was done and only the memories are left.

How many times do we hurry our lives away trying to get all the “things” done on our to-do lists, pushing ourselves with all the things we just have to get done? I started looking at my to-do list for the next 6 weeks and it became overwhelming! So instead of looking at it as a have to get done list I decided to look at it as a thankful list, a I-get-to-do this list. I was able to spend worthwhile time with my daughter and son-in-law as I helped them move. I get to be 2 hours away from my daughter from Arizona instead of 20 hours. I am fortunate to have the family I have and I am blessed to have them for thanksgiving dinner where we will be crammed around tables sharing turkey and pumpkin pie, telling the hilarious stories to the new generation. Laughing our heads off together and enjoying grandkids playing together. I praise God that I am still healthy and able to get up and go to work and work 40 plus hours a week. I feel blessed that God gave me the ability to make most of my Christmas presents and I am so blessed to have another great grandson that is healthy and grandchildren that did it right! I think it’s all in the perspective! We can look at our schedules as our to-do-gotta-get-it-done list or our thankful I-get-to-do list. Yet I still struggle with the time element as I look at the calendar and the fact that the days are ticking by.

Time. What is time? I read somewhere that there are two kinds of time.

Chronos and Kairos. The first is earth time, the kind of time that schedules are built on, the kind of time that runs our lives and keeps up the pressure and causes the wheels of commerce to turn with relentless urgency. Chronos gets us to work and to school and to church and sets the framework of our days.

Then there is God’s time. I find it amazing how something like a worldwide pandemic make us reconsider what is vitally important and essential after all. God’s time, Kairos, is eternal and not the victim of earth’s systems, values, or pressures. I am beginning to understand our mission on this earth is to turn what Chronos time we have here in this life into something eternal. To make something “Kairos” out of the hours of time we are given on this earth, something that will transcend time and space and go on after time and space has ended.

As I visit the lists of my life again. I am reminded once again to value the moments I have. To enjoy life and make a conscious choice that today isn’t just another day to be driven by my to-do list. It is the day to make something of the time and make memories that will outlive me. To make memories of the smiles and giggles of grandkids and listening to the ones that need a listening ear and making time to hang that last picture on the wall of the daughter’s new home. It is the day to make something memorable while taking time to make projects that will outlive me. It’s taking time to make a memorable thanksgiving dinner in the midst of a pandemic. It’s taking the time to pray with a child (big or small) that is hurting. It’s realizing that time is a treasure and that God’s time, eternal time is more important than the earthly time. That time spent with those we love is timeless! The rest…well some things still need to be done but some can wait.

Pastor Fran

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 A Time for Everything
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
9 What do workers gain from their toil?
10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.
13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.
14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.