DOES ANYBODY REALLY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, ...” (Galatians 4:4)

Back in the 1970s, Chicago (the musical group, not the city) sang, “Does anybody really know what time it is; does anybody really care?”  I don’t know why, but I’ve always been very time oriented- I remember as a little kid that I was fascinated by the calendar, and really got excited when it was time to turn it to the next page.  I got my first watch (a cheap Timex) at age seven.  I’m one that likes to keep time to the tenth of a second!  

The clocks in our small church building are all battery operated.  After about six weeks or so, they’ll lose a minute, and a couple of them will lose two or three minutes.  Last Saturday, I walked around the building resetting them.  A couple of days ago, as I walked into the church sanctuary, I noticed that the clock was about seven minutes faster than my watch.  I figured my watch was slowing down and maybe needed a new battery, but upon checking with the other clocks in the church building, the sanctuary clock was found to be seven minutes fast.  I don’t know where or how it picked up those seven minutes, but some Bible experts tell us that seven is God’s number!  I reset the clock, and we’ll see how it’s doing this Sunday.

Christians have often teased me that I’m a slave to the clock, that there will be no clocks in Heaven, and that God doesn’t want us to be in a hurry.  Well, in fact, contrary to what many scholars say there WILL be time in Heaven!  Revelation 8:1 says there was silence in Heaven for about “half an hour”.  And as far as “hurrying” goes, Acts 20:16 says St. Paul was “hurrying” to get to Jerusalem.   So there!

Of course, we really SHOULD NOT become fanatical slaves to the clock.  It’s been speculated that the reason the priest and the  Levite did not help the injured man in the Parable of the Good Samaritan is that it would have delayed them from getting to the Temple.  We SHOULD be balanced about our stewardship of time.  Ephesians 5:16 speaks of “redeeming the time”.  

My father was always late, and I mean always!  As a kid, we were always very late to any events we went to as a family.  For some reason, he just never seemed to allow for travel time.  If a function was taking place at 2 p.m. he would leave for the event at 2 p.m.  I guess he thought he could drive anywhere from Canton, Massachusetts in 60 seconds or less!  I have tended to react to that, and so I usually run early for appointments.  This week, I met with a photocopier salesman.  I will say it impressed me that he was ten minutes early for the appointment.  He offered the church a fantastic deal which we took, but even if it was a bad deal I might have said yes just because I was impressed with his punctuality.  My old boss, Dave Milley, used to say, “If you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late!”  I happen to agree, and I try to put that into practice.

We all only have so much time in this life that’s allocated to us!  I pray we use it wisely!