Time to slow down? Taking your foot off the pedal
Billy Hill
The Eagles were one of the most successful bands in musical history selling over 200 million records worldwide. Their first hit, Take it Easy, was a song about letting go of stress, avoiding self-inflicted pressure and enjoying the moment. It’s a lesson we could well learn today. It seems, in this media-drenched, increasingly pressurised and frantic time, we have lost the art of slowing down.
Today we live in a world where everything is based on speed – fast transportation, fast Internet access, fast news, fast food. The Bible predicted this is what would happen. God told Daniel that in the last days “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Dan.12v4). Is that not a picture of society today?
Are we throwing away our time?
Billy Hill
‘I only have a minute. Only sixty seconds in it. … Just a tiny little minute. But eternity is in it.’ Those words by Pastor Benjamin Mays remind us again of just how precious the God-given gift of time is. Life is made of moments and none of us have an infinite supply.
The Bible has many metaphors that illustrate just how brief and temporary our existence is here on earth. It’s described as a breath, a flower that fades, and a wisp of smoke that appears for a little while. It’s a sobering thought that should you reach 80 years of age, you will have lived for around just 4,000 weeks. Life, we often learn too late, is in the living. Most people leave this world with a few pounds in the bank, but all of us leave it with no seconds on the clock. Time, therefore, is infinitely more important than money. Once it’s gone, all the gold in the universe can’t buy back a single moment.