Dear Friends,
It is hard to believe that we are already halfway through 2026. By the time you read this, the summer solstice will have passed, and the daylight hours will slowly begin to shorten again. It feels like no time at all since I moved into the manse and began working in this new pastorate – the time really has flown by.
Perhaps the old saying, “time flies when you are having fun,” should be changed in my case to, “time flies when you are busy.” It has certainly been a full season of getting to know people and finding my way around the pastorate and the partnership.
All of this has set me thinking about time. I looked it up in the dictionary and found several meanings and even more uses. The primary definition is the “indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future, regarded as a whole” (OED 10th ed).
How often do we say, “I haven’t got time,” or rush around trying to save it? I am reminded of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland: “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!” Life can feel like that sometimes, can’t it?
Yet time is, in a sense, endless. We have all the time in the world – God’s time – to be and do what we are called to be and do. Perhaps one gift we can offer the world as Christians is time: time to listen, to be still and to wonder.
Have you ever tried slowing down, taking more time over what you are doing, or simply being – watching, looking and not worrying about doing nothing? Paradoxically, I often find that this is when I achieve more and work through my “to do” list more efficiently.
So I encourage you to slow down and remember that God’s time is not our time. Don’t be like the White Rabbit. In Ecclesiastes there is a wonderful poem about time, often called “A Time for Everything,” which says that “everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses” (Ecc Ch 3:1 GNB).
May we enjoy our time, trusting in God who sets the time and gives us all the time in the world to enjoy Him.
Alison