Who does TIME belong to

Its strange to think what time does to one mind. I thought time belonged to me when I was at university even shortly after. I was its keeper, its planner and its organiser. In high school, I had a detailed schedule of lessons, homework, music practice, music performances all awaiting my confident check mark. At university, I had lists in every notebook of what tasks I needed to accomplish, sometimes writing down things I had already done in order to feel the satisfaction of marking it complete. I recall on weekend hours, sitting on the “sunny side” of the library at a table that set my face to my future with the precision of the metronome I kept long after I had stopped taking music lessons. 

And then, my faith took over! If I stop and realised, thought about it, that every day is filled with the unexpected which took up time. We make to do lists. We set out thinking our day will go according to plan. But it doesn’t, because interruptions that we never saw coming invade our lives and usher in the unexpected. Time then loses its measurement. 

I remember the final year of university, it was hard, I just wanted the course to be finished. The next adventure embraced, gradation day upon me to wear the cap and walk with pride of been successful. I get through that year, making lists, still trying to check boxes. I survived my classes, writing papers and plowing through the months. I recall the feeling of been lost with the awareness of uncertain that time gave after I had completed my degree. The lists grew exponentially longer in the hours I slept, and I would wake only to remember that there was so much more undone that I hadn’t even thought to write down. 

I resented myself for how short I fell by these measurements. But even more, I resented the requirements that I give up the measurements. How else would I make progress? How else would I achieve those dreams from the sunlit university days? How else would I become who I most wanted to be?

Then, one Saturday evening at the end of November, late in the day as the sky grew dark, I sat at the back of Christchurch Cathedral handing over my prayer, over my lists. During the day I had been escaping of sorts, running in the hills and walking along the beach. I drove around seeking, desiring something familiar in a moment that life was preparing me for change. 

As I sat in that Cathedral awaiting for footsteps of certainty to arrive. I brought a list of things to keep the mind busy. There were assignments due, desires of future careers, relationships to strengthen or dissolve. A sense that above all this though, none were important in this moment, nor relevant. 

Its like the hanging onto the lists, the desire to keep busy as to mask up the seeking. All this familiar old way was to pass. In its place the relationship strengthening without words. In its place the wild and beautiful life, took form. I have learnt to move through the valleys and hills, through whole weeks and months without keeping time. To be lead into surprise and down narrow paths. I have learnt to trust that when I could not hear Jesus, He was still walking next to me, He was still close by. As I slowly chiseled away those old plans and expectations, I realised that time belongs to God and He asks us to offer it up with open palms. 

This hour is Yours, how should I spend it? This day is Yours, how do I love You in it? This life - so long, and so short - is Yours, how do I follow You through it?

Its hard to remember how I once understood time. It’s hard to believe that I once imagined I was in control of it, that I could make it obey me, that I could achieve those unlit dreams by my own power. Now, standing between me and that old story of progress is the beauty and the light. Standing between me and the checklist I once cherished are these minutes of laughter, these minutes of grace, these gifts of the infinite. 

As I move once again, its not done in my time yet the Lords, its not done with my control yet by the Lords, its done with love, with joy, with hope and most of all with faith. How the meaning of time has truely changed, what a journey it continues to be.