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The temperature is down to 93° in Baghdad this week. That is down from a blistering 115+ just a few months ago. I guess the seasons are changing everywhere. Nowhere in my mind does 93 qualify as cool weather, yet I pray that our troops find some relief in the lower temperatures.
Here I am with the football season about to wind up with only two games left to be played in my son’s last season of high school football, one of which will be played before you read this note. The season has flown by and his 18th birthday is just around the corner. Can graduation be far behind?
I want desperately to bless him and to send him on to the next chapter in his life with an enthusiastic slap on the back — “Go get ‘em son!” Would that it were so easy.
I am stunned. The days, the years...where did they go? How did so much time pass so quickly? These sorts of questions bring the obvious answers — while you were at work, while you were sleeping, while you were living. Regardless of which answer seems the most fitting, the reality is still the same: the days and the years have passed.
Too quickly for a father, but if I remember correctly, not nearly fast enough for a young man about to turn 18. A matter of perspective you say? I suppose so.
I can think of words to say and even how I would like to say them; but I can’t get my mind around the notion that it is time to say them. Would I have been more deliberate, more thoughtful, or more careful if I had realized that the years would be gone so quickly?
Of course I want to say that I would have been a better steward of the time. The trouble is that while you are living day after day, you don’t really realize how fast those days are passing and then they are gone. Whatever was done with them is done.
Whether we are talking about time, energy, or finances, the importance of the choices we make is similar in each case. The time we have is limited, but what we do with that time is up to us. The amount of energy we have to use may vary from day to day, but how we expend it is up to us. The element that is so easily overlooked in how we use our time, energy, and financial resources is that we are constantly using them. We use our time, energy and money every day. It becomes second-nature, something we do without even thinking about it.
For example, when we flip a light switch, we might think that we are making a decision to bring light into a room; but how often do we think of a decision like that as being a choice about how we spend our money. We may not think of turning on the lights as a financial choice, but the good folks at LCUB and KUB do. The same could be said when we turn on the TV or when we go online. We may think we are making a choice about entertainment or information, but our cable and internet providers benefit from a choice we made about how to spend our money.
The first step in being the kind of steward that God wants us to be is to realize that all the time, energy, and money that we have belongs to God. God entrusts us with them and calls us to use them in a way that would be pleasing to God. Doing that requires thought and reflection on our part. The time, the energy, and the money will all get used in some way or the other. The question for us is will they be used in a way that gives us peace and satisfies God’s expectation for us to be good stewards.
Joy and peace,
Ed
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