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About Time by Phil Callaway I have officially reached middle age. That time when your age starts to show around your middle. The thing about The Middle Ages is that if you have any brains left at all, you start to realize you’re running short on time to do things you vowed you’d do when you were 24. And so, one sunny Saturday, you find yourself behind a 16,000 horsepower ski boat being steered by a former high school friend named Bubba, trying to avoid fishing boats and beads of water that smack you in the eyes like buckshot. Every few weeks I get together with five other middle-aged guys for something we call the Circle of Six. It’s an eating group, really, though we founded it with grander plans. The group has been growing (pun intended) for a dozen years now, thanks to some incredible cheesecake of our own making, and lately I’ve noticed that some of us are engaging in activities we wouldn’t have dreamed of back when we had our minds. We spend our early years wishing time would hurry up, our middle years trying to find more of it, and our latter years wondering where in the world it went. For instance, one of the guys (I won’t name names, but Ron Nickel receives this guy’s credit card statements) bought a high-powered motorcycle, then sold it when he came within a whisker of crashing. Sitting around the fire, we talked of things we intended to do when we were younger but haven’t because we’ve been held back by time. Or loving wives. Or insurance policies. “I’d like to cycle across the country,” said one. Everyone nodded. “Garden with my wife,” said another. Everyone gasped. One even confessed that he’d like to learn the ukulele and give concerts. I guess we spend our early years wishing time would hurry up, our middle years trying to find more of it, and our latter years wondering where in the world it went. Time is one versatile guy. It flies. It heals wounds. Time will tell. Time marches on. Time runs out. Everywhere in the western world are reminders of time. We have clocks on our wrists and our cell phones, our stereos and dashboards, on street signs and buildings. One day archaeologists will dig up our stuff and say, “Hey, they must have worshipped these things. Stand back, this one’s still ticking.” To avoid the avalanche of time, we buy juicers, yogacize, nip, tuck, wear Spandex, medicate, diet, visit 4.5 million “anti-aging” websites, then try a diet that “really works.” We are constantly trying to make up for lost time. We rush about as if we’re going to find it somewhere, hoping all the while that time is on our side. “Teach us to number our days, so that we may be wise,” wrote the psalmist in the Bible. And if we number them, we just may find that we don’t have enough time to sit around comparing what can’t be taken to the next world. Things like bank accounts, titles, and temporary achievements. We will discover that time is precious; that we should spend it brightening someone’s day, helping those less privileged, loving the forgotten, and gazing into the night sky. After all, no matter our age, we have less time than we think. Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is an assumption, and this moment that we say we have … just passed. I believe we are stewards of whatever God gives us, including the days we have left. Because of Christ we are promised the riches of eternity where time will be extinct, but for now we are allowed the riches of today. Maybe I’ll sign up for those ukulele lessons, after all. Phil Callaway is the author of ‘Family Squeeze: Hope and Hilarity for a Sandwiched Generation.’ Visit him at www.laughagain.org.
Breakfast of Champions by Rhonda Rhea What is it about a cereal box that’s so incredibly mesmerizing? I don’t think it’s the gripping plot in the box copy. Flawless design and compelling script? Probably not. But it doesn’t matter how old you are or how mature you may be. And it doesn’t matter how ridiculously juvenile the game or puzzle or its target audience, there’s some sort of magnetic attention sucker built into every challenge-less “which of these is the same” puzzles. The back of the box drags you in. Go ahead and fight it if you want. It’s futile. Your brain is going to do that word search whether you want it to or not. I guess it’s at least partly because there’s not always reading material handy at the breakfast table. If the newspaper is late, it’s either the back of the box or you find yourself stuck reading the nutrition label for the gazillionth time. How many times can you calculate your daily intake of riboflavin in a bowl and a half of those Sugar Crunchies before you just have to flip the box? What a great inspiration for us as believers to always keep our Bibles within reach of the breakfast bowls. We need to make God’s Word the centre of the perfect place setting. If our minds are going to be sucked into something, why not let it be something with a full day’s supply of spiritual vitamins and iron? There’s nourishment in His Word every time we search it. It’s an entirely different kind of ‘Word search.’ The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible, records Psalm 119:20 this way: “My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous! — insatiable for Your nourishing commands.” Verse 147 says, “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in Your word” (NIV). There’s nothing like rising early for the most important meal of the day. God’s Word! Now there’s a breakfast of champions. Verse 103 in Psalm 119 says, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (NIV). Honey-sweetened and good for us, too. No Frosted Honey O’s compare. Starting the day with His Word — there’s no puzzle or brainteaser there. As a matter of fact, it’s a total no-brainer. The same Psalm says, “May my lips overflow with praise, for You teach me Your decrees” (verse 171). Sounds like questionable breakfast table manners, but this kind of lip-overflow is perfectly okay. In truth, it’s all part of this complete and balanced spiritual breakfast. Dig in!
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