Time
by Andy Perry

What is your relationship with time? We all have one, you know. Sometimes it seems as if its presence will overwhelm and smother us. For instance, when I was in the Gulf War in the spring of 1990 I found myself staring at time as an enemy—as a strangler of my soul, a stealer of my life. After the war ended and our field hospital was packed up and shipped out, there we sat in the desert with nothing but time as we awaited our plane back to civilization. I had already read the books I’d brought with me. My friends had already shipped out and, there I was, left with nothing but time. Sometimes it feels like an enemy—to a prisoner in a cell, to a patient in a hospital bed, to a child in a classroom as Spring explodes into color outside and all he can do is count the days - so many days!- till summer vacation.

But sometimes time is so attractive. When we least have it, we most want it. Recently, a friend was asked what he wanted for Christmas. Without acknowledging the many gifts which he, his wife and young children might like he said, “ What we most want is simply time and space to spend with each other.” When we least have it, time is so alluring. It seems that we always have too much or too little. Time can be like an unfulfilling relationship - either longingly out of reach or closing in, threatening to crush us.

We want something more - a relationship with time which is both fulfilling and mature. But that is easier said than done. I approached the issue of time in a round about way in my article last month on Sabbath rest. It’s helpful to remember that God is the Creator of time. He’s given it to us as a gift for the ordering of our lives in ways that make room for work, room for rest, room for worship, room for reflection and enjoyment. Sabbath is a God-given boundary of grace to help our relationship with time become as fulfilling and mature as we long for it to be.

Wayne Muller, in his wise book, Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest , notes that, without even knowing we’re doing it, most of us have traded in the gift of time for money and possessions. Money is not bad. “Money allows us to participate in the national marketplace and to purchase all the basic goods and services we cannot provide for ourselves.” God has bestowed on us both the gift of provision and time to be balanced and serve us in wisdom. But, according to Muller, we’ve unwisely traded the joys of time for money, and we’re paying a high price as a result. “How do we decide when we have too much time and not enough money, and when do we know we have too much money and not enough time? In our culture we so overvalue money that this question is rarely asked.”

Today it sounds ridiculous, but in the 1950s a great social concern in America was the dilemma looming on the horizon which the conveniences of modern life created: thanks to all the labor-saving devices of our newly automated world, what would we do in the future with all our time? Experts predicted we would work thirty, perhaps even twenty hour work weeks. How would we fare under the sheer weight of so much leisure time?

Over the course of the last sixty years how have we answered that question? We’ve collectively decided to use our time to make more money. On December 1, 1930 W.K. Kellogg replaced the traditional three eight hour shifts in his Battle Creek, Michigan cereal plants with four six hour shifts in order to provide more jobs as our nation entered the Great Depression. Not only did it help America, the workers loved it. They gladly sacrificed two hours of pay each day to spend more time with their families, more time helping in their communities and churches and neighborhoods. In plant-wide votes taken throughout the coming decades workers cast their ballots again and again in favor of the six-hour shift. Said one man, “I need the extra money, but I need the time at home even more.”

So it was for families in Battle Creek, Michigan until December 11, 1984. By then the lust for mass amusements and ever more fashionable lifestyles, particularly promoted by television advertising, had worked its worst on the plant employees according to historian B. Hunnicutt, as documented in his book Work Without End . Shorter hours for less pay was now described by employees as ‘silly,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘a waste.’ A passive consumer culture encroached and overwhelmed the relationally-oriented culture of earlier eras. Suddenly, time was no longer spelled ‘family’ or ‘church’ or ‘neighborhood’ or ‘rest’. The old slogan finally came of age: time is money.

And if we are not using our time to make money today, there’s a good chance we’re using it to spend it. We Americans spend three to four times more hours per year shopping as our European counterparts. Shopping - on-line, at the mall, through mail-order catalogs, ad nauseum - has become our primary use of leisure time. Whereas God designed provision and time to equally serve our lives on earth, we’ve made time a slave to money and the mindless amusements it can buy. And here we sit, surrounded by our toys and our long Christmas gift lists, with no time to enjoy them. We’ve brought this mess of unfulfilled longing for rest - for time - on ourselves.

Muller quotes a businesswoman named Lorraine who freely expresses her priorities: “You have to give up something to be a success in business. There’s not time for everything. Me? I have very little time for my spiritual life. I don’t have a civic life. And I do very little with friendships—anything that doesn’t have to do with business. I don’t have time to cultivate relationships that aren’t profitable.”

I wonder how Lorraine will fare in the nursing home someday when no one comes to visit - with no significant memories other than closed deals, promotions achieved, round the world business trips experienced and a large bank balance accumulated. She may be able to afford the best care money can buy. But she can’t buy friends, she can’t buy family, she can’t buy peace with God or true community with His people.

No, time isn’t money. Both are gifts of God to be used for our good. So, what’s your relationship with time? I bet I can guess that at this moment you’re either looking at it longingly, wishing you had more, or resenting it as its presence feels like its keeping you from life. Let me encourage you to see it with new eyes as a gift to be guarded and enjoyed. God gave us time not only to provide for our basic needs, He gave us time to enjoy the people in our lives, the sunsets on the horizon, the relaxed rhythm of Sabbath rest and unhurried conversations where God’s grace is shared. Whether we like it or not, all of us are married to time. The maturity and pleasure of that relationship is up to us.