Measuring Time

My friend and brother Shola once put me on a panel of discussants at a program organized by the fellowship he was leading when we were in ABU Zaria. As the discussion went on I was asked to talk about how my life had been changed by being born again and in responding I made reference to my classmates in Secondary school and mentioned the year I started school. The hall suddenly came alive – murmurs, snickering and the like. Apparently, the crowd was wondering how it was that I went to secondary school at the time I did and I was still in the University with them. I decided to clear the matter. “You think I am your mate because you met me in the University?” I said to them and then took 2 or 3 minutes to tell them a little about my life and how life sometimes takes detours that you don’t anticipate. Now you know how I got the nickname “Uncle Sheddy”. Anyway, when I was done the murmurs and snickers had turned to clapping; some stood to their feet to applaud in appreciation. I know that after school, many faced their own periods of detour and delay; I hope they found the strength to stay sane through it and be able to one day share their experience with others as I shared with them.
We often plan our lives sequentially, in a straight line, with all the milestones neatly falling in behind each other at the precise times we want and expect. But we are not sovereign and the One Who is measures time differently from us. You expect that you will be a millionaire by the time you are 40, you expect to have been an established professional 10 years after leaving school, you expect your business to be sponsoring you on trips abroad, you expect to be married by 30 and have kids a year thereafter. . .so many legitimate hopes, desires, aspirations and expectations. Unfortunately it does not always happen like that. Marriages go for a decade without children, people have Masters degrees from foreign Universities for 5 years and no job. Things just go at a pace that frustrates you and drains the hope and enthusiasm out of you till you are a bitter, cynical, empty and tired person with a plastic smile, just keeping up appearances. What has helped me is my view of time. That “right here, right now” perspective is a big problem and when I view my time here from an eternal perspective it reduces the pressure of meeting up with expectations that have no actual eternal benefit. When we worry about having food, shelter and clothing and about having children and jobs and so on, it is only natural but even more important than having anything here on Earth is impacting eternity. If I face difficult circumstances I will do what I can to overcome them but when it is beyond my power I think of how I can react to it in a way that glorifies God. No, it is not easy. At all.

Please find time to read 2 Corinthians 4. Let me quote here verses 16 – 18 “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal”.


Comments

  1. Truth!we will not lose heart!Thanks for the words of hope.Uncle Sheddy..lol

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