Readings: Psalm 90; Numbers 17:1-11; 2 Peter 3:1-8a
So teach us to number our days that we get a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
...with the Lord one day is like a thousand years… 2 Peter 3:8a
I often enjoyed Andy Rooney’s closing moments on 60 Minutes. There is wisdom in his few words. He wrote a piece entitled You are the Best in which he listed the things he had learned: “I’ve learned…that the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.”
What is important for me to get done this Advent season? Some will recall how slowly time went by as a child in anticipation of Christmas day. How many shopping days until Christmas, being numbered daily in our local newspapers, simply crawled along as if each day were indeed a thousand years. Then we grow up and time starts marching, then galloping. There is never enough time, it seems; but unlike what Andy Rooney learned, we don’t seem to be getting more things done. We blink and it’s Christmas Eve – each day a thousand seconds. What’s going on here?
So I ponder again: what is important for me to get done this Advent? Not what is urgent, but what is important. It may be to hit the pause button on my chattering mind, with its unending to-do list, just long enough to breathe deeply and utter a prayer for guidance about what is really important. Maybe it is to pray personally with the psalmist: Teach me to number my days THAT I MAY GET A HEART OF WISDOM. After all, we don’t have much time – we only have all the time there is.
Come, Lord Jesus, Come.
Offered by Bill Albritton, writer, teacher, child of God.