A Wrinkle in Time
As we enter the last month of the year, do you find yourself asking, “Where has the time gone?” I was noticing how my old friend Dr. Gibbs last week lamented the rapid movement of time that is now escalating for all of us. The line of a poem comes to mind in contemplating the melancholy and sentimental outlook of the slipping of time, “Time turn back, turn back in thy flight, make me a child again, just for the night.” We cannot turn the clock back, and I don’t think we would really want to do that if we could. What we can do, however, is make the most of the time God has left us.
How can we make the most of the time left to us? I would say by first of all giving to God the time He desires in a deep committed walk with Him. Secondly, let us invest our time in people. This, after all, is following the admonitions of the two great commandments in loving the Lord and our neighbors (Matthew 22:37-40). By the time you read this Pastor’s Word, the chances are very strong from the last piece of communication that Heather (our daughter) will have already given birth to her little baby. As I was contemplating dropping everything to try to be there for this happy moment or get there as soon as possible to celebrate, my younger daughter, Juliana, got on the phone and asked, “Dad, twenty years from now what would you have wished you would have done?” This was said in reference to other things that I was saying I was obligated to do. What’s more important? Things, events, activities, or people?
In view of this, allow me to ask three penetrating questions.
I. Do We Use Things and Love People or Love Things and Use People?
There was a most bizarre, but true escapade in the life of crime that was reported some years ago. A man had hidden in a major store like Sears and during the night went throughout the store switching price tags. The next morning when people were coming through the checkout line, confusion ensued. A man came up to the counter with a canoe for $14.95 while a lady came up to the checkout with a toaster for $795.00. Common sense would tell you something was drastically wrong. In a very sad sense, people in our society are switching the price tags. We are placing incredible value on worthless things while priceless people are hurting as a direct result.
In a painful, personal situation, a teen-ager was given a very nice, expensive watch from his Dad. When he was telling his best friend over ten years later he broke down in tears. The young man was successful in anyone’s definition of the word, yet there was a void—a deep ache for relationship. His words to his friend went something like this: “My Dad didn’t get me this watch. One of his secretaries did. The reason I know is because I got this identical watch for my birthday last year.” He was longing for the personal touch of his Dad. The affection missed could not be bought off by a Tag or Rolex.
We must be careful that we do not convey a message of misplaced value. When this is done, usually the offending party doesn’t know he or she is doing it. “And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).
II. Do We Utilize and Make the Most of our Time Together With Loved Ones?
My precious Mom and I were in the grocery store when I received the phone call from my dear wife that our daughter is very close to the delivery of her first child, our first grandchild. Mom, as expected, rejoiced with me over this prospect. Then as I began to plan how Sean and I might get to South Carolina as soon as possible, I said, “Mom, do you want to go to Aunt Glenna’s or go with us to South Carolina?” Then I said, “Mom, if you stay home or go to my Aunt’s, we won’t be together on Thanksgiving Day.” So what did we do? A simple answer, celebrated early! So we had Thanksgiving with Grandma (my Mom) a little early.
Rather than lamenting the time you will not have together, make the most of what time you do have. I have seen and at times participated in using precious time together whining over the time we will not spend together. How wasteful! Yesterday is already spent, tomorrow is only a promissory note, and all that we have is today. Someone has said that’s why it’s called the “present.” Let’s make sure we make our presence with family and friends a gift, full of joy. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born.…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
III. What Memories Are We Leaving Behind?
In my memory, I see our family pulling up to my Grandmother Edwards in our brand new, green 1959 Rambler station wagon. (For the previous fifteen to twenty hours, Judy sat in the middle and David and I sat in the back reading comic books until God turned the lights out; then we watched the stars until we dozed off.) Mom wakes us up by a sudden door opening, accompanied with a squeal of delight. Dave and I bounce up and I see something that looks like a picture from an old primitive painting. I see my Grandmother. Her hair is hanging down to the back of her knees; she had taken her hair down and was preparing for bed with slow, soft, meticulous combing strokes when we drove up. What I remember was this look of Heaven on her beautiful face, a broad smile and those warm outstretched arms. I made another discovery during that time of my life. I leaned over to kiss my Grandmother good-night. I was surprised! Her face was full of wrinkles and I said, “Grandma, I didn’t know wrinkles were soft!” She laughed with her sweet sense of humor and winked at me. What a sweetheart!
As I close this out, I see the soft, wrinkled face of Grandma. I also see the soft sunset in Big Sandy, Texas, after we left Arkansas for my father’s land of nativity. I see my father and his brothers pick up their instruments and play music from a bygone era. My father picks his Depression model Gibson while his rich tenor voice softly pierces the evening with, “All along the water tank, waiting for a train, a thousand miles away from home….”
So here we are, not a thousand miles, but over forty years away from those days, but those precious memories lay softly on my mind, like the soft wrinkles on Grandma’s face.
To borrow an old children’s author’s analogy, each day is a fresh “wrinkle of time.” Therefore, may God help us to make a memory worth remembering.
- Pastor Pope -