Tick Tock

The other day I came across this excerpt from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters:

"Let [man] feel as a grievous tax that portion of [time] which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright."

Time. It is perhaps our most precious and valuable asset. Time is money, yet it can't be bought or sold. There's always either too much of it or never enough. It is unfeeling in its routine and yet it is the great healer and comforter. As I left the house after reading this I mulled over this whole concept of the way I regard my time. It was around five thirty. Rush hour. As I sat cooly in the driver's seat, the music from the stereo playing soothingly around me, I observed my fellow commuters. The emotions on display on all their faces ranged from tiredness and distaste to urgency and frank anger. Being stuck in the same position for even two minutes has the ability to make one irate enough to yell and honk if they feel this is an extra interruption to their planned schedule. "I've been at work all day. I'm really tired. I don't need this". How many times have I felt this way? But as I sat there in my nonchalance I felt eerily removed from the scene in front of me. I was a casual observer in this cacophony of protest.

Have you ever had any experience with that particular type of person who always likes to be on time and thus becomes extremely nervous and agitated if they are late for anything? I am one of those people. Life tends to be very hectic and I find myself always rushing from one thing to another. Everything becomes scheduled, planned, prepared, and dated; and anything that gets in the way of that can send me over the edge rather quickly, even if it's my own fault and especially if it's due to someone I know and love. My time is precious and quite frankly I don't have too much of it just lying around (but then somehow I still find myself procrastinating from work. How I do this I may never know). But who am I to judge how best my time is spent? We prioritise things in our life and thus everything else that seeks our attention is an allowance from our higher commitments. So what happens when our time is intruded upon without our permission? We get irritated. We get mad. And we get rude.

But I should think: What right do I have to my time? What makes it mine? Did I somehow earn it? Because I certainly didn't make it. When it comes down to it I can't mould it, bend it nor shape it in any way. All I can do is move along with it in the flow of life until I reach the end of my days. The end of my allotted time. And it is allotted. This is the one preconception we seem to never question nor revise. Truly, we are rarely aware that the sentiment even exists. We have no right to our days just as much as we have no right to our birth, to our health, to our belongings, and to our family. We don't get to choose how much time we have, we only get to decide how to use it. It is, very really and truly, a gift. Perhaps if we had to treat it as such our attitudes might change more radically than we'd expect. If every moment, every minute, is a gracious gift that we are given - to be alive, to experience relationship, and to create - then how could we possibly be upset that we're not in the place we had planned to be or doing the thing we "should" be doing? Perhaps He who has given you all your hours and minutes and seconds has somewhere He thinks you should be. What if that irritating last minute conversation with your mother just as you're about to head out is something that she really needs to share with you? Is doing the dishes after supper such a waste of your precious study time?

There are things in life that are beyond our control. There are things that are entirely up to us. And then there are things that are in between. What we must decide is how we are going to approach them.