daveingland.com   about church relevance, culture, life, community, & transformational faith

Stop for a minute and take a look at what today’s date is. Can you believe this year has gone by this fast already? It’s kind of funny, but the older I get, the faster time seems to slip by.

So many things I’d like to do, but I just don’t get to them. Too many people to connect with that I end up overlooking someone. Places I’d like to go, but never have the opportunities. Is it really all just a matter of lost time?

Being 41 years old, I remember a lot of songs from the 1970’s. As I thought about how fast time has been passing me by this year, I was reminded of a song from Jim Croce called “Time in a Bottle” from 1972. The first verse is a very familiar one and it goes like this:

If I could save Time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
‘Til Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

Unfortunately, there is no way to put time in a bottle. Days come and days go–we can’t live in the past. I need to make a dedicated effort to be more concerned with the affairs of my life today rather than being so focused on the future. It’s a recurring theme with me as I set my sights on carrying out an exciting and life-changing vision I believe God has me journeying through. However, I need to trust God for tomorrow, make wise choices today, and stop and smell the roses that won’t be around tomorrow.

If I have not spent time with you because I’ve been too busy, I apologize. It’s easy to hide behind the idea that God’s work must come first, but I must receive my friends and family as the blessings that they are instead of considering them (consciously or subconsciously) to be burdens that take away my time from doing God’s work. I need to love God and love others ahead of loving my calling or enjoying the work of ministry.

As I right my course and re-direct my time to enjoy and appreciate those people that I have been fortunate to have in my life, I pray that God will season these relationships with grace and that we may pick up where we left off, almost as if time were in a bottle.