Daylight Savings
Two important announcements about THIS Sunday
First… it’s Second Sunday Dinner Time. We are planning to have International Foods. Hope you can come! Even if all you have are ‘Murrican Foods…
Second… even though it is Daylight Savings Time, do NOT set your clocks ahead. We will have a clock changing moment after we eat. So we can have an extra hour of sleep!
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15, 16 ESV)
In 1986 a radio station in Chicago started a contest as a joke. The winner of the contest would be the person who was able to conserve the most sunlight. Listeners called in all day with their descriptions of their efforts.
One caller set mirrors up throughout his house, all aligned to bring sunlight into the house and get it “caught” in a spiral of light.
One caller put jars of water in every window, theorizing that the water would “hold” the sunlight for hours after the sun went down.
One contestant shut all the curtains in his house so he would “use” less sunlight.
I’m pretty sure they weren’t serious. Daylight Savings? How can we save daylight?
Of course, the idea behind Daylight Savings is not to save light. It is to reduce energy costs or something. But the concept of “Saving Daylight” reminds me of Paul’s instructions to us to “redeem time.”
Time, like sunlight, cannot be saved in a bottle. Its value is not in the keeping of it, but in the using of it.
How do you use your time?
I worked for a while in an electro-plating company. We plated metal parts with chemicals to increase strength, reduce effects of weathering, and prevent oxidization. And at the factory, because of the expense of the chemicals boiling in the vats, I learned that every second counts. A minute spent in daydreaming was not merely sixty seconds. It was hundreds of dollars.
Our time is valuable. Not just because it can be used to make money. But because everything we do matters.
Think about how much of your day is spent for yourself. Compare that with how much of your time is spent purposefully for God… or purposefully in serving someone else… or in helping make someone smile… or in easing someone’s burden.
Paul tells us to redeem our time. He meant that we are to use it the way God wants us to use it. And while He might not have told us in His Word exactly what job you should have, or exactly what hobby to develop, or exactly who to be friends with… He DOES tell us how our time should be spent.
He has shown you what is good; and what does He require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
How do you spend your time?