This post is a little different in that it is a bit rambling and off-the-cuff. I had some thoughts as I sat down at my desk this morning contemplating some a few things, the issue of time came to me, and just felt compelled to share some thoughts I was having about time, and how we, and I personally had at time squandered and ignore that precious gift – Arnold
You know it for all the infamous and vile things committed by King Henry VIII there is quote he had that I love and for over the last month has resonated with me…
Of all losses, time is the most irrecuperable for it can never be redeemed.
This quote was famously played out in a dialogue in the final episode of the series “The Tudors” in a conversation between the King, and Sir Charles Brandon;
King Henry VIII: “In these last days Your Grace, I have been thinking a great deal about loss. What loss Your Grace, is to man most irrecoverable?”
Charles Brandon: “His virtue.”
King Henry VIII: “No, for by his actions, he may redeem his virtue.”
Charles Brandon: “Then his honor.”
King Henry VIII: “No, for again he may find the means to recover it. Even if some man recovers his fortune he is lost.”
Charles Brandon: “Then I cannot say, Your Majesty.”
King Henry VIII: “Time, Your Grace. Of all losses, time is the most irrecuperable, for it could never be redeemed.”
There was a movie in the early 80’s called “Brewster’s Millions”
where the titular character Monty Brewster is tasked with having to spend $30 million dollars in 30-days or he would forfeit a bigger inheritance so imagine having to spend a million dollars a day. Now, let’s say someone was to deposit $86,400.00 in to your bank account every single day, but here’s the catch at the end of that day the money is gone would you not find a meaningful and useful way to spend that money? Well everyday that we wake up God deposits 86,400 in this account we call the day, and when the clock strikes 11:59:59pm the balance zeros out, and since we have no promise of tomorrow…
James 4:13-15 “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the LORD’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
We need to make each second count. We spend so much our life worrying about things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things jobs that have no eternal consequences, petty squabbles and grudges that only weight us down, ghost of the past that only cause us to spend way too much time looking behind us when we need to keep our eyes focused in front of us, all the should-of, could-of, would-of’s of life that in the end God has used in one way or another to bring you where you are at today that for better or worse has made you the person you are today. Now, we have to invest our time in jobs because we all have those basic needs called food, housing, and well living but leave work at work and if be more concerned about the relationships with those are work you call friend than you are with the inner-office politics, drop all that extra weight and guilt let Christ help you, let brothers and sisters in stop playing the lone wolf because a solitary Christian is a vulnerable Christian don’t believe me just watch the wildlife shows on cable TV about lion hunting they don’t go and attack the entire pack of gazelles, no they wait for the one gazelle the is one its one and then it is dinner time.
Choose what is more important time with your family and friends or watching the mindless drivel on television on that fateful day that God doesn’t make the next deposit in to your account it won’t be CBS, NBC, CW, or any other TV network to mourn you it will be those people that you deprioritize to watch that football games, or put off to see what is happening on “The Walking Dead”. Western culture has become so disconnected that we have a new orthopedic condition call “Text neck” affecting the younger generation what is instead of looking down at electronic devices we spend that time in our account engaging in real conversation one-on-one looking people in the eye, getting to know people and not just faceless screens. Time is the most precious commodity that God grants us with every single day and we squander it I should know for forty-four year I have, and it has taken becoming concerned with a potential health issue to make me reevaluate my thinking on a lot of things. Some of which I am sharing with you in this little well this little rant. But to echo Henry time is the most irreplaceable thing in existence, for once we use it forever is it gone. So, my question for you, and for myself what you are going to do about it…