MY Time!!!

C.S.Lewis in his creative book, The Screwtape Letters, writes a great truth about our feelings of time. Screwtape, a senior devil is writing to Wormwood, a junior devil, about deceiving the human's mind regarding time:

"Zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own.' Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of 24 hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. ...You have a delicate task. The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense. Man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift. ... Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend's talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tete-a-tete with the friend), that threw him out of gear. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen."

I admit to having that 'feeling' many a time. 'Time is mine to give and waste', so goes the lie. It often leads to feeling that people rob me of my time, or waste my time. Frustration, impatience, lack of love, unkindness, harshness, and all manner of vice can stem from this lie that time is mine! But time is not mine. When I embrace eternal life I find that I do not get lost in the lies of having 'my' time wasted. Living for the LORD is to enter into 'His' time, and to look for the fullness of it.

St. Paul says to Timothy, "But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time." (1 Tim 6.11-15)