By Chris WittsWednesday 2 Oct 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Did you ever get the feeling that the world is moving so fast? It’s frantic. One writer calls it the age of acceleration. When things take off, this state of constant acceleration, and I think most of us are trying to keep up with the world, and as we get older, it gets worse. In 1879 Thomas Anderson invented the light bulb, which killed rest.
And what I mean by that is people began to work more hours because they could now produce artificial light when it was dark outside. Then, about a century ago, technology started to change our relationship to time because technology invented labour saving devices. For example, I guess in the past you had to chop wood to get warm. Now you can just push a button and heat comes out of the floor magically.
Rushing or resting?
You used to have to walk everywhere or ride animals to get to places. Now we just get in the car or fly, and we used to write with ink on something called paper. Eventually we started typing. Now we just dictate everything to Siri. She does it for us. We have redefined what it means to be human through the invention of the iPhone, and we don’t think twice now about the impact it has had on our lives.
I’m talking about culture here. Many studies are showing the impact of the smartphone, how it affects us. If you don’t think you’re an addict to your phone, I challenge you to turn off your phone for 24 hours and see what happens. Now I want to say this morning that no one has ever used time as effectively as Jesus. He crammed so much into the 3.5 years of his public life, and yet whenever we meet him in the Gospels, he never appears to be in a hurry.
JB Phillips said – Christ’s task and responsibility might well have driven a man out of his mind, but he was never in a hurry. Jesus was not impressed by numbers, and he was never a slave of the clock. Now I found it amazing that Jesus lived a fallen, obedient life without ever running out of time. So what message does this have for us? I think it says it’s not so much the hours you put in that count, but what you put into the hours that really count. One writer said in his studies of the Life of Christ that he was struck by three things. One, Jesus never worried. Two. He never hurried. Three. He was never flurried. And when Jesus told his disciples one day that he intended to return to Judea, they pleaded with him and his reply to that question – are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble because he sees the light of this world. It was as if Jesus was saying, It’s not a question of what I will or want to do. There are 12 hours of daylight, and I must take advantage of them to fulfil the task which God has given to me, regardless of the consequences.
There’s a wealth of meaning in those words.
Jesus would take full advantage of the hours of the day and the advantages of the hours of the night, the day to work, the night to rest, and his mission would be carried on despite the many obstacles that confronted him every day. In Ephesians Chapter five, Verse 16, it says: redeeming the time because the days are evil. Well, we are slaves of time. There’s hardly a thing that we do not do that’s not governed by time.
The clock sends us to bed. The clock wakes us up and it sends us to work, and the day of work is closed by the clock. So I think we are bound by time. King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that there is a time to be born and a time to die, so time is sacred. The Bible lays importance upon the urgent and the correct use of time. Knowing our days are few, we’re like the grass that withers.
I think we should join in the prayer of the Psalmist who said – teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. In doing this, we shall redeem the time. I think we should learn to say yes to the best things. Instead of trying to do everything, don’t rush through this season or the next. Follow the example of Jesus – to choose obedience over hurry, find out what God wants you to do and to make that a priority. After all, there is no time like the present, now is all the time that we can be sure of.
Let’s Pray
Help us to measure our days so that we might do the best thing first. And I offer this prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.