As my daughter grows and matures, she is entering a phase of life where she begins to comprehend the meaning of time. For example, at school, she is taught to recite the days of the week and the months of the year. She can tell me what day it is today, and that Sunday is a special day when we go to worship God and that Thursday is also special because we have a Bible class in the evening. One of the things she is beginning to show interest in is telling time on an analogue clock. She has grasped the idea that the short hand indicates the hour, but she is having a bit of difficulty with the minute hand, perhaps because you have to multiply by 5 to get the exact minute. Well, she will get there with time and patience.
One of the things she understands about the analogue clock is that the clock’s hands only go in one direction. To us, we would call this the “clockwise” direction. She understands that it is impossible for the clock’s hands to go in an anti-clockwise direction, unless it is broken, of course, like in one of her Peppa Pig storybooks.
Are we “Clock Wise”? Sometimes, we live our lives as if we have forever and ever ahead of us. We get caught up with school, and work, and family, and the things of this life, and we have little time for God. We think that we have “tomorrow” or “next year” to become a better Christian, but that “today” is not a good time to do so because we are just so BUSY!
Friends, I know that Moses wrote that the length of our life is 70 to 80 years long on average (Psalm 90:10). But I also know that this is an AVERAGE, and that our lives can be short and unpredictable like a vapour – here today, and gone tomorrow (James 4:13-14). We can be living life one minute, and be squashed dead by a falling tower the next (Luke 13:4-5). Life has no “rewind” or “reset” button. Let us examine how we are using the time God has given us. Let us walk, not foolishly, but carefully and wisely, redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:15-16). Let us be CLOCK WISE, for our life’s clock only runs in one direction!