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About Time

by Annette Stafford

 
August has been a very eventful month in my calendar this year. My youngest twin sons celebrated their 34th birthdays on 12th and we had all our family over to celebrate but there were other significant events on the wider calendar too. Tributes flowed for two Australian female giants in the music industry who died within a week of each other. Judith Durham the frontwoman for The Seekers died on 5th August and Olivia Newton-John died from breast cancer on 8 August. Olivia was first diagnosed with the disease 30 years ago.

Both these women contributed enormously to donating their time and talents to charity over their lifetimes and also their services to the entertainment industry. They gave much back to Australia.

In her lifetime Olivia Newton-John was also widely regarded for her commitment to education, training and research into the treatment of breast cancer incorporating supportive wellness therapies. She had found these types of therapies very helpful in her own journey facing breast cancer and she wanted everyone to have access to what was offered to her.  Olivia had been a spokesperson for "The Liv" which is a heart-shaped, self-examination device for women to aid in the detection of breast lumps that was named specifically after her. She contributed into researching natural medicines, was involved in many other humanitarian causes and to causes supporting the care of the environment.

In an interview Olivia Newton-John said "My cancer scare changed my life. I'm grateful for every single new, healthy day I have. It has helped me prioritize my life."

We hear that so often don't we about prioritizing one's life when the situation becomes dire?  When lives can change with the flick of an eyelid, we notice people suddenly don't sweat the small stuff that distract their focus. The really important things of life come to the fore and certainly, Olivia Newton-John achieved much and touched many lives with her prioritised time.

In fact, each of our lives is governed by time and that clock is mostly working against us but prioritising time is a very helpful tool in allowing us to focus on the important things because time is so precious.

When we're enjoying ourselves, we think of time as flying. If we are not enjoying a task we think of time as dragging. I've become so attuned to time throughout the working day that I can often guess it to be very close to the actual time it is without ever having looked at a clock.

My little grandson Max is only two years old and the other day when I called over to help with Max's daytime sleep, he protested that he just needed 'Another Minute Nanna' before going to bed. He must have registered the look of surprise on my face because he then said "No Nanna, I need two minutes"

At such a tender young age, he has realised that time can be a valuable thing to have on your side and he is already bargaining for it. While Max is only just discovering that time is a precious thing this point is made very clear in the bible.

For mankind, our time began with God. Like all things, He invented our time when He created the universe and with God, everything has perfect timing. God knows exactly when we are to be born, and He knows the exact timing of our mortal deaths as part of His eternal plan.

It's incredibly difficult for us mere mortals with our finite understanding to comprehend that God has no beginning and no end and that He is eternal because our only concept of time is that it has a beginning and an end and is therefore limited. God's timing is timeless and limitless and He exists outside of it.

In the bible, time is first mentioned in Genesis 1:5 "And God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day". God was working with time since the beginning of creation. In God's original plan for us, he gave us a time of rest, a day where no work at all is done - a special time to draw closer to Him and to remember that He is the one true and living God.  God's design in making and blessing the Sabbath, and in commanding that it be kept holy, was that we might never forget Him, the Creator of all things.  He went into great detail to explain its importance and our observation of it. The Sabbath is the great memorial of creation and a time to reflect on God's amazing awesome creative power. God instructs us on a special time for the Sabbath - The seventh day from sunset to sunset.

Through all the seasons of life, God remains loving, powerful and ever-present. He wants us to prioritise Him in our lives every day - meaning to spend time with Him, to spend time reading His word so that we may know Him.

The gospels reflect the busyness of Jesus' life in healing the sick, teaching His disciples, and ministering to people's needs yet ALL of Jesus' time was utilised for His Father's glory.  There are many examples showing Jesus choosing a quiet place to pray not only when he was alone but also when he was with his disciples. Jesus made spending time with God in quiet prayer a priority.

In Matthew 6.33 In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

The ability to live a holy life comes only from God. We don't live a Christian life by our own power. God wants us to clear the clutter from our minds and focus singly on Him.  God wants us to discover the blessings that come from giving undivided attention to Him.  After all, our relationship with God is as strong as the time and energy we put into connecting with Him and it requires us to prioritise our time just as Jesus did.

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