THE GIFT OF TIME

I was sitting on the “Dala Dala,” the name of a 15 passenger vehicle in Tanzania, riding with classmates from Seminary to a Bible college on Mt. Kilimanjaro. An older African gentleman seated across from me engaged me in conversation. At one point he said apologetically, “We have a much greater poverty in money here in Tanzania.” As I thought about the rich hospitality I was experiencing during our stay, I replied apologetically, “Yes, but we have a much greater poverty of time in the United States. We have forgotten what it means to give time to others.” Soon the van was filled so full with passengers that I could no longer see him seated across from me. At one point, the van stopped to let him off and I saw his small hand extended through the mass of people toward me. “Good bye sister, may God be with you at all times,” he called out from somewhere in the crowd and after we shook hands he exited the van. For a few moments we were connected as two traveling together in the sacredness of time.

Time is a funny thing. When you are in a hurry, you always find yourself needing more but when you are anxiously waiting for a particular event or result, it seems to stretch out into eternity. And despite our attempts to “save” time, we cannot have that time back for a “do over.” We live our whole lives within the rubric of time, and our birth and death are recorded in the hours and minutes on the calendar.

For our North American culture, time seems to belong to us individually and we parcel it out in calculated quantities according to the events of our daily schedules. But for those in many developing countries like Africa, time is relational and involves the interactions of others in your community. I experienced this sense of time in the hospitality that was offered to our group of Seminary students as we were welcomed into homes, schools, and medical clinics. At each place there was a ritual of welcoming, serving food and drink, and conversation that could not be rushed. Each person’s needs were attended to in a thoughtful manner that was not dependent upon a timed agenda. Once we learned to relax and forget our own agenda for each day of the trip, we realized that it was not the amount of time spent in these rituals that mattered to our hosts, but the relational quality of our time together. It was here, in these moments of treasured time, that I did indeed experience the presence of God at all times.

As Kristen Johnson Ingram (Weavings, May/June 2009) states about God’s covenantal agreement to be with us throughout all time, “God stands at the altar, consecrating time for my use, inviting me to eat the bread of hours and drink the cup of years, urging me to live, to age, to even die, so that time will then propel me into eternity.” If time is a sacred gift of God, then we need to use it in intentional ways that ignite the world with joy and passion even in our struggles and times of hopeless waiting. Perhaps if we begin to shift our sense of time to that of a sacred nature, we might use our daily planners not for scheduled events but to list things like “be conscious of someone in need today,” or “engage a stranger in meaningful conversation during lunch.”

God has given this gift of time, not as a way to limit our existence or to use as a means of accomplishing tasks, but to be in time in God’s good creation with each other as we were intended to do. So as you look at your planners and calendars, remember to ask yourself, “What would God hope for me to do with this gift of time today and throughout the year?”