The biggest problem in your life may be on your wrist.

We speak of your watch, of course: Too many of us go with the flow of the clock -- which man has created -- instead of going with the flow of God, the true Creator, Who is without the constraints of time.

Think about it: you wake up with a clock near you head; there's a clock in your living room, in your family room, on your kitchen stove; you check your watch right after the shower; and there's the clock in the car -- which you can check to the minute with the time they constantly bleep from the radio.

If that's not good enough, maybe your handheld or laptop or cell phone has such a feature. The time is right there in the bottom of most computers -- down to the second (and you can check that here). Or glance at the neon sign at the local bank, the local newspaper, the local car dealer.

We have nearly made the clock an idol with an altar every New Year's at Times Square. In London, the center of town is Big Ben. Bong, bong, our heads are also ringing.

And those speeding ticks you hear could be your heart.

Recall here the movie, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off! Or Groundhog Day.

Round and round we go, chasing the second hand. This is why we are going in circles. The more we check on time, the less time we seem to have!

Our obsession with time takes a physical, emotional, and spiritual toll. And we need to think about it more than we do. Time seems accelerated as it is. We don't need to make it go any faster. With prayer, we can slow it down. With prayer, anything can be accomplished. Wouldn't that be nice, to make the day longer?

To do that, you need to take some of the time back. Take time to speak personally with others. Take time to notice the beauty of nature. Take time to relax. Take time to be with your children. Take time to be with God and the day will go longer.

These days every single person seems too busy even to catch a breath, rushing through the chores of the day even if there is nothing to do after the chores. We rush to rush. We rush to do nothing! Hurry up so that you can wait, is the expression. Haste makes waste, we are also told.

It also makes coronaries.

We're supposed to imitate Jesus and somehow it's hard to picture Him checking his wrist every couple of minutes -- rushing through a throng that wants healing because He has to be at the Sea of Galilee in forty minutes.

Are you too busy to pray? Are you too tied to the clock to settle into meditation? And have you lost contact with the Lord as a result, as well as with other people?

We all need to ask this -- and Lent is a great time for reflection.

2/10/05

Return to archive page