[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during September 2025]
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away.[1]
Do you know what time it is? A seemingly straightforward question for which a glance at a nearby screen or timepiece should provide a simple answer. However, as our opening quotation might suggest, there is more to it than that.
Time is measured in more than hours and minutes on a clock-face. Somewhat larger but equally valid measurements of time include years, centuries and millennia. Contrary to popular opinion, time as we know it is not infinite; time had a beginning; time will come to an end.
Time is one of the both highly valued and under-valued assets that we have. Whether time is valued or under-valued depends upon how we use it. We can enjoy it, we can use it profitably or we can waste it, but we cannot escape its progress. In 1742 the English writer Edward Young penned the oft-quoted adage: Procrastination is the thief of time.[2] It is a warning that is applicable to so many of us. In the Anglican church the order of morning service includes a prayer of confession which contains the following line:
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done;[3]
Time itself is consistent, regular, reliable, predictable. It cannot be manipulated by some authoritarian edict or commercial enterprise. God made time; God is always on time. Do we appreciate the blessing of a time system that God controls?
Leaving aside the human messing about with time zones and daylight saving, there have been occasions when time did not perform according to its normal pattern. Both Joshua and Hezekiah saw time adjusted by God.
So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man, because the LORD fought for Israel.
Joshua 10 v13-14 [BSB]This will be a sign to you from the LORD that He will do what He has promised: “I will make the sun’s shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps”. So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.
Isaiah 38 v7-8 [BSB]
But time is running out. We can see from passages in the books of Daniel and Revelation that God has a plan for the world, a programme for events that occur at a specific point in time. Within this overall plan there are life events that have a more personal focus and for which we need to be ready:
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
Proverbs 27 v1 [ESV]You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.
Luke 12 v40 [ESV]Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
Romans 13 v11 [ESV]
What time is it? It’s later than you think.
References:
[1] “O God our help in ages past”, Isaac Watts, 1708
[2] “Night Thoughts”, Edward Young, 1742
[3] Morning Prayer from The Book of Common Prayer
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Last week’s reflection: Much Ado about Nothing
Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys