We have several wind-up clocks in our home; two floor clocks and one wall clock.   I have grown to depend upon the soft tick-tock of the wall clock, the chimes of the floor clocks throughout the hour and the strikes telling me the hour. These are sounds which help me mark time throughout the day. On the face of one of the floor clocks are the words Tempus Fugit, which are Latin for time flies, and it sure does. Tick, tick, tick.

We just crossed into a New Year and decade.  Seems like it was just yesterday we turned the page on a new century; that was twenty years ago.   Remember all the Y2K Chicken Little “the sky is falling” hype?   Being the cornball, I am, this year I had fun saying, “I will see you more clearly next year in 2020.” Get it?  Nudge, nudge, 2020 is perfect vision… drum-roll, kaboom. Seriously, as a kid way back when, 2020 seemed like a distant dream and boom!  Here we are and I am nearly threescore years old.  If you don’t know how old that makes me, you’ll just have to look it up.  Tick, tick, tick.

All kidding aside, whether or not we recognize it, time is one of our most precious commodities.  Like money, I only get to spend it once. Unlike like money, I can’t earn more time. I am ashamed to admit I have spent some of my time coins pretty poorly.   There has been time squandered on activities like drunkenness and gossip and debaucherous behavior, I must admit I was wicked when I was young. And then there is wasted and lost time; time I could have and should have spent better loving on family and friends and pointing others to Jesus. Then there is the worthless time I have frittered away surfing the net or thinking badly, okay, I’ll say it, hating others in my mind and heart.  I must admit that I wish in many ways I could have a do over.   But that is just not in the cards for days gone by.  Tick, tick, tick.

The good news is that each and every day that I wake up I get the opportunity for a do over.  A chance to spend my time on the things that matter most, that is, if that is what I want to do. Which involve loving God first and people next.  When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus (God with skin on) said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all you mind and all your soul. And to love your neighbor as yourself. That all the prophets and the law hung and these.  Tick, tick, tick.

For some reason, the last half of my tank of gas in my vehicle goes faster than the first.  From what I have experienced so far,  I believe this to be true for my ride through life as well.  Perhaps, I would do well to do what He who spoke Creation in to being suggests.  

Love God with all that I am and love my neighbor the way I would want my neighbor to love me.  Tick, tick, tick.

Because, time, after all, truly does fly.

Be joy filled always, 

Christine Davis