“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 1:2
“There is a time for everything.
There’s a time for everything that is done on earth.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
“He who was sitting on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new!” Revelation 21:5
A Morning Prayer
Time. It is what I still have and what I most fear losing. Time to watch my boys grow. Time to help shape them. Time to continue to grow and mature. Time to love my wife. Time to see my visions and dreams come true. Time to harvest the fruits of my labors.
But time is not mine, it is Yours, O Lord. And it is a cross-shattered time. A time where all is both meaningless and meaningful. Time that is full of blessing and curse, wonder and woe. Time that is present, yet not quite. Time that has arrived and still must come.
So many things I pursue are a chasing of the wind. So few things are of ultimate importance. Help me to know the difference between meaningless and meaningful time. Help me to discern the eternal difference between pregnant time (time that is full and ripe with possibility) and pressure time (time that is held captive to the urgent and demanding).
As Stanley Hauerwas reminds me, “Christians live between times. Because it is God’s time, the question for us, as is made clear in 2 Peter, is ‘what sort of persons ought you to be?’ Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again. Dying, rising, and coming makes it possible for us to be a people who refuse to live desperate lives of impatience. Jesus’s cross is a hastening that waits–a waiting designed to draw all of God’s creation to the great consummation ‘where righteousness is at home.'”
Give me the strength and hope to face the time that is before me, and not the fear that is beyond me. Give me the heart to be shattered by time as You have been shattered by it. Help me to make of the time of my life something beautiful, truthful, holy. Give me this day, my daily bread, and forgive me when I store up bread that could feed others. Give me courage to spend my time broken on behalf of the broken. Amen.
