Life is but moments. Some good moments. Some breathtaking moments. Some moments simply mundane; something that you do because it needs to be done. But in these moments, it is easy for our lives to be more like a hamster running on a wheel, than like a rose soaking up the sun. This week, as I found myself pegging clothes on the line, I stopped and breathed deeply. Thinking of the moments that make up this life.
This past week, an unassuming champion of the faith breathed his last. One moment on earth, the next moment in eternity. As I read texts from my friend of her father-in-law finishing up his race, I stopped and thought of life and death. Moments of time. Moments outside time. This man was humble and quiet, contemplative and wise. His wrinkles spoke of moments experienced. His conversation spoke of time walking moment by moment with his Creator.
This week, as I stole a moment with my mum in between dropping off children and picking up children, she whispered that this week it had been 5 years since my grandfather stepped into eternity. And I considered his life. The choices he made, the legacy he left. My grandfather was a man of faith and gave this gift to my family. He would take long snoozes. He worked hard. He loved his family. He cherished music.
As I pondered these moments in my mind and heart this week, I considered that often, time to reflect and consider needs to be a moment where we press pause on the wheel of activity, even just for a second. For we serve a Creator outside of time. He doesn’t need quiet to hear us. Nor does he only meet us in a designated “Quiet Time”. But often we need quiet. Quietness of our soul to stop and listen. Quietness to think and breath deeply. As C.S. Lewis said:
“Almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments one following another…Ten-thirty– and every other moment from the beginning of the world–is always Present for Him. If you like to put it this way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.”
His life isn’t dictated by hurry and haste. He isn’t restricted, nor is he ruled, by time. He exists in eternity. He knows the breaths we take. He treasures the hairs on our heads, whether baby hair, thick hair or grey and thinning hair. He also invites us to be drawn out from the stresses, from the to and fro, to consider our breath, to consider the moment, to celebrate and consider life’s moments in light of him.
But as we do, may our hearts fill with gratefulness. Thankful that in the moment, whether marvellous or mundane, he holds them all. He listens to them all. He is always on time, even if we are not. He is Author, Perfector, Craftsmen and Creator. In your moments this week, may you press pause and consider. Consider your choices, the steps your feet are taking and the hearts being carried along with them. Make decisions with an eternal space-time-continuum, with our eternal God and his plan for salvation in our hearts, on our minds and in our discussions.
Consider now, John 9:4, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” Let us get on with the work after pausing to prayerfully consider the moments in front of us.
