As my daughter said, I got the gift of time this Christmas. More precisely, I received 3 desk calendars as gifts and one wall calendar. The wall calendar is for beauty. Susan and I are blessed with a friend who has been giving them to us for years to share a common love of flower gardening. BUT, the desk calendars are for fun. Each of my children know that I love to laugh and they each, along with Susan, produced a different desk calendar, unknowing what the others were doing.
I’m delighted. I will smile at least 3 times every morning this year.
But the “gift of time,” is a fascinating idea. Our lives and our time are gifts. God exists we say outside of time – in eternity. When I was a child I thought that eternity was just a lot more of what I knew, time like we know it now. I wasn’t completely happy to understand that God was “outside” of time,” beyond everything we know even if God was also here.
I like this life and the time I have been given to enjoy it.
But when I am reminded that my time is a gift, and finite at that, I am also reminded that as we start to measure another segment of time we call a year, the gift of time and life are exactly that: gifts. That news is terrifying because it means that this life and our time are out of our control (no new news but just a reminder). But that news is also incredibly hopefully because it reminds us of something more. That news reminds us that we have been given this time by a loving God who asks us to use it well. And because of that loving God we will have the gift of another time from the loving God who is in eternity.
By that measure I do not need 4 calendars to know that we are blessed in this and in every time. We have all the time in the world, and beyond it, thanks to God. That good news asks us to treat our time as a gift, to use it wisely, not to squander it, but also to treat is as a gift, a reminder of the Giver. Those gifts invite us into a life of thanksgiving and service. And those gifts make every time a time of hope.
Happy New Year!
[Harvey] Gray
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