Over the last few days I have found myself saying, ‘I’m not ready for it to be Autumn yet!’. The hot days of summer and the constant hum of a cooling fan at bedtime seemed to be endless, but as the dark nights settle in, even I have to acknowledge Autumn is in the air.
As the old proverb says, ‘time moves forward and cannot be paused or rewound’. Time is a strange thing. Yes, there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, 365 days of the year (unless it is a leap year) and yet sometimes the passing of time can feel very slow. When I was little, it seemed to take forever for my birthday to come around and now time passes so quickly it can take my breath away as my diary fills up, another week passes leaving me wondering where time has gone!
The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is ‘a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens’, time to work, rest, laugh, be busy and a time to be still. It is the being still element that I struggle with, and I don’t think I am alone. Our church communities could not survive without the commitment of those who always busy. You know who you are! Perhaps one of the challenges we face as Christians is making time for God in the middle of our busy lives. Prayer and Bible reading can easily become things we fit in when we have a spare moment, rather than something we make a priority. Sometimes, making time for God can be as simple as pausing for a few minutes in the morning, saying a quiet prayer while we walk, or taking a moment to notice the beauty of creation.
I shared in a service recently the practice of Susannah Wesley, mother of Charles and John, who had so many children at home she would lift her apron over her head as she took time to be with God! Maybe we need to find our own ‘apron’ in the midst of our busy lives. As we move through the month of October, maybe we can consider how we use our time.
Are we giving ourselves time to rest? Are we making time for the people who matter? And, most importantly, are we making time for God? I’m off to find my apron!
Blessings, Sally