Four Corners of Pondering

Food for thought that my brain regurgitated just for you! Ready?

1.
It will always be in one’s best interest to use time to his or her advantage, no matter how slim the possibility of a positive outcome may be. Instead of telling that pre-teen to shut it, grow up, and get a life…just wait for time to change him into the man that God has called him to be. Instead of wishing and worrying that your financial aid won’t come or that your medical form might not be accepted two months late…just put it all in God’s hands, giving Him your worrying time because He can do a lot more with it than you can.

2.
Time is given to everyone. Now, as we know, comparing our time to the vast expanse of history and future, we easily see that our time is short. Very short. And we have even shorter periods of time in our lives that coagulate into one life. As I work with the kids in the preschool this summer, I’ve realized that each child has internally, whether they are conscience of it or not, a clock counting down the minutes, hours, days until they will grow out of that small skin and into something a year older, a year wiser, a year with more skill and compassion and conflict. They will never realize that someday they will be my age. I am at a completely different bus stop in a completely different town, ready (or wanting to be ready) for my next adventure. I am heartbroken by some of the children in my care who are living day to day with secrets and hardships, though I suppose we all have those at some point. They have grown up too fast, they struggle to grow up, or their parents have done all the growing up for them, leaving the extraordinary human being contained in that four-year-old body behind. The child will never know what happened to them. What the misuse of time has done to them. But thankfully, God has His loving arms wrapped around that child and he can use any situation to His own advantage. He is God afterall.

3.
As a group of people called human beings, most of us enjoy that short period of time called life and in doing so we are fulfilling God’s purpose, or at least a part of it. The connections and fellowship made through a correct use of time is certainly a wise way to pave one’s life. I can say from my miniscule eighteen years of experience that I have not always been a steward with my time. In fact, my personality calls for time used in excess, e.g. I’m considerably slow. However, slowness, used with caution, is a gift that God gave to us in order to retain our sanity. Sally Theology 101.

4.
The time we spend, whether fast-paced or slow-paced, is what we make it. Unfortunately, God doesn’t give us a Blackberry that tells us what to do next in our busy schedules. If I want to spend six hours playing my Playstation 3, then so help me I will! Obviously, those six hours could have been time to study or read or go on a date or work on an art project. At East Carolina, for every hour of class time, they recommend three hours of studying. Yeah, THREE hours. Another gift from God: divine time management. Pray for focus. Then praise God and never stop. It works, I promise you. Anything is possible with God.

What?? You’re still wasting time reading all this? Get to work!