Pastor Chris
One of the interesting observations of getting older seems to be how time passes so differently for me than it does for my children. I remember when I was young, time seemed to move so slowly. A five-minute wait for my parents to finish a conversation seemed like an eternity. Now, I can spend an entire evening with a group of friends and it would feel like only a few minutes have gone by.
As my kids have begun to become more … opinionated … I have discovered that this perception of time was definitely not unique to me. While my eldest is definitely being intentional about his naming “later” as any time after I finish telling him “we’ll talk about that later,” for my younger son everything seems to have either happened just yesterday (even if it was months ago) or is “taking so long.” It’s especially apparent when he asks everybody’s favorite car question, “Are we there yet?”
All of this goes to show that for us, time is definitely relative. Even if my atomic clock tells me time is traveling consistently from second to second, our perception changes based on a number of things. Not only does our age affect how we perceive time, but often the things we are engaged in affect how time passes for us as well. The time we spend with friends often travels very quickly for us, while the time waiting for a doctor to come into our exam room often travels extremely slowly. For our middle school youth, it’s possible that the time between the start of my sermon to the end of it seems especially slow.
What I’ve begun to discover is sometimes when we’re forced to slow down – when time seems to drag – we’re being given an opportunity to notice more than we otherwise might have. While stopped at that traffic light that I always seem to hit, I sometimes take the time to look more intentionally at my surroundings. What can I notice while I’m “stuck” here waiting? Where is God potentially revealing to me something that in my rush to get on with my day I might otherwise miss? Sometimes it’s something as simple as a bush that has begun to bloom. Other times, it’s the people who are also traveling about on their way, either in another car or along the sidewalk. Each of them has a story, and it’s a blessing when we can remember that this life – and the time that we have – isn’t all about us.
It’s this same mentality I challenge myself – and you, dear reader – to live into not just at the traffic signals, but in the other portions of our daily journey as well. What would happen if we were to take the extra time to check out at the grocery store with an actual human scanning our items for us, and we then were so bold to ask them about their day, and really mean it? How are others affected when we see them for them instead of simply how they can further our own plans and agendas for the day? Sometimes, the extra 30 seconds it takes to greet someone with a smile and wish them well is worth it – if not for us, then maybe for them. What would it be like to not try to race somebody to the next opening in traffic, or to let that person with three items go ahead of our 30 items at Target?
Let’s be honest: Being patient isn’t always easy. Waiting is hard, especially when we’re under some sort of stress (and who isn’t these days?). But sometimes waiting mindfully can be for us and those we encounter a blessing that makes small differences in the lives of ourselves and others. And the good news in this? It’s the small blessings that ultimately seem to add up to the biggest difference. So let’s be patient and see what God is doing.
Pastor Chris