“Giving of our Time with Thanksgiving” – Week 3
By Brenda V. Hess, Area Women’s Ministries President, Western Europe, Mediterranean & Middle East

The other Sunday I heard a minister make the following statement, “Man’s kingdom is built on taking; God’s kingdom is built on giving.” When I begin to count my blessings and think of how good God has been to me, I ask myself the question, “What can I give back to God?”

One of the first things that comes to my mind that we all need to give back to God is our time. Time is among our most valuable possessions. Every person has twenty-four hours each day. Some make good use of time and some waste it away.

Listen in on most any conversation and you will hear discussion on time—making time, killing time, losing track of time, time to go, time to stay, dinner time, prayer time, bad times, good times. Time means different things to different people. Time has no value on its own. It just sits there ticking along, minding its own business. People give meaning to time.

I’ve watched children sitting in a church service and time seemed to be moving slowly. I’ve seen young couples holding hands and time seems to fly. Any mother will tell you that sitting up all night with a sick child makes time seem to stand still until dawn. Time is a lot like money; there’s never quite enough to do all we want to do.

It seems at times that we are being held hostage by time. Counting time is big business. There are many ways to measure time—calendars with every interest known to women, watches and cell phones that all but call our name to remind us of appointments or even when we need to take medication. It makes me wonder if time controls us, or do we control our own time? Is time our friend or our enemy? When we are young, we think we have plenty of time. When we get older, we wonder if we will have enough time to finish what matters most.

Counting time may help us know where we need to be or what we need to be doing, but it does not tell us about the measureless possibilities that the next twenty-four hours hold.

Often, we live as if time were ours to spend as we please. Time never waits; neither can it ever be recalled. Time is so precious we should give careful consideration to use it wisely. Someone has said, “Yesterday is a canceled check, tomorrow is a check uncashed, but today is cash in the pocket.” We need to make good use of our precious gift of time.

We need to measure our minutes and days by the good times of life, the relationships we share with our family and special friends. We do not want to measure time simply by watches, desk calendars, or deadlines but by the quality of our life!

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