Author: Paul Silcock

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An Amazing, Quick Turnaround

It is amazing how quick things can turn around. It doesn’t take much to get the mind going in a completely different direction.

Amazing, Quick Turnaround

Just over a week ago, the team that I chaplain in the OHL was riding an eleven game losing streak. 

I could see the frustration in the players’ eyes, hear it in their voices, and could tell they were losing confidence. They were wondering if there would ever be an end to the streak they were on. 

When you can’t buy a win, you begin to doubt yourself, your teammates and even your coaches. 

It’s like being on that teacup ride at Disney World where you are spinning at a dizzying pace. You just want off. You can’t control the spin of the cup you are in, and you want the operator to shut the ride down. In the meantime you keep spiralling downward, feeling sick as your stomach moves closer to your mouth.

I’m sure the team felt much like that. You lose hope that there is anything that will change your circumstances. 

I remember being on a team that went a whole season with only two wins. It was brutal. By the end of the season we were not even thinking of winning. All I could hope for was to maybe score a goal so I had something to feel good about.

But when you have been down for an extended time, you find you don’t have the hope inside you to even wish for a little thing that would be good.

If something small changes, however – even the slightest encouragement – it brings hope back like the tide coming in from the ocean. 

It’s like winter that can drag on and on, pushing you down and down. But when you see that first little bud on a tree, even though it’s still brown and shrivelled, or one blade of grass that is green, your hope of spring comes rushing back to you.

What was amazing about my team was that, just over a week later, they won four straight games and have had points in five consecutive outings.

They are riding on a huge wave of hope right now. They’ve even climbed out of the basement in their division. 

It started with a loss in overtime. They still got a point and could have easily won. That’s when their hope emerged. 

That hope gave them something to believe in the next night and they won that game. 

Their hope was alive, and it was like it had never left them. Their hope was new and fresh; it was bold. You could see it on their faces; you could hear it in their voices. 

And they kept riding that hope to another and another victory – four straight wins.

Hope – just a little of it – can spark something in us that keeps us going until something else comes along to increase our hope. 

It is amazing.

Here’s the thing: Wherever you are at in life right now – riding a crest of hope or scratching to find any semblance of hope – understand that true hope is not found in you or anything you can do, not even a fortunate happenstance. Hope is with you; hope is always with you. Real hope is found in Jesus Christ. And if you will seek Him, spend time with Him, speak to Him, He will show you the hope that you can have in any situation. Your mind can be changed in a moment. That’s truly amazing.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need hope for right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Was Persuaded By Something Little

The other day it was a little thing that persuaded me to think, embrace, and cheer for something against my intentions.

I Was Persuaded

On Sunday I watched the Grey Cup, which is the Canadian football equivalent to the NFL’s Super Bowl. I’m not saying these two championships are equal in any respects. I’m just saying that what the Super Bowl is to the NFL, the Grey Cup is to the CFL – the national championship.

I won’t get deep into all the differences, but the NFL has bigger, faster, more skilled players than the CFL, while the CFL has a bigger field, uses bigger footballs and has more players on the gridiron.

But that’s all a side note.

Now you can persuade me on many topics; I will listen to logic. But when it comes to sports, I will not be persuaded for any reason. 

… Well, maybe one little reason. 

And it was a little reason that had me cheering for a team that I had no previous interest in.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats went head-to-head on Sunday to determine who was the best in the country.

Neither team was my favourite, but if there was some kind of pull or rationale for cheering for one team, it should have been for Hamilton. 

You see, I’ve never lived in Winnipeg. I’ve only ever driven through it and flown into the airport on maybe three occasions. I’ve only stayed there to attend a conference, and stayed overnight in another part of the province maybe three or four nights in my life. 

Whenever I’ve driven through Winnipeg I’ve taken the ring road that goes around the city – except for one time before the ring road was built. 

I have no ties, no history, no probable cause to cheer for the Bombers.

On the other hand, Hamilton is in the same province I was raised in and currently live in. My son worked there for a couple of years – though he refused to live there – and I have slept overnight in Hamilton while attending conferences.

I guess what I’m saying is I have more reason to cheer for Hamilton than Winnipeg.

Hamilton is known as the Hammer, the armpit of Canada, while Winnipeg is the Windy City with mosquitos the size of Canadian geese.

If I had to choose who to cheer for in the Grey Cup this year, it should have been the Ti-cats … but I cheered for the Blue Bombers instead. 

Even more out of place, the week before I had cheered for Winnipeg over Regina, though I went to college in Regina for four years, and attended a few Roughrider games at Taylor Field. 

What persuaded me to cheer for the other side?

One little thing: a friend of mine bleeds Blue and Gold. I’ve seen this man’s heart trampled by his team so many times I can’t count them. This guy is passionate for Winnipeg like no one else and the team has gone 29 years without a Grey Cup victory.

The little thing that persuaded me to cheer for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers was that I couldn’t bare to see this guy go down in flames again. I felt so bad for him.

… Maybe my cheering paid off. The Blue Bombers defeated the Tiger-Cats decisively.

Here’s the thing: Maybe we don’t think enough about Christ’s sacrifice for us. If we did, we might be persuaded more often to side with Him, and to say no to sin and yes to following His will.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How much does Christ’s love sacrifice mean to you? Think about that for a while.   Leave your comments and questions below.

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The Right Size Shouldn’t Be Hard To Find

Finding the right size of something that you want to buy shouldn’t be all that complicated. Yet that is what I’m experiencing.

right size freezer

We’ve had a freezer for about 28 years. It’s one of those appliances that you put in your basement and never think about replacing. They seem to last forever. 

Sadly, however, our freezer is showing signs of its age. Ice builds up under the lid and it’s not as efficient as the new ones are. Plus it’s just the two of us at home now so we don’t need a freezer that is as big as what we needed when both our kids were around. 

I’m also concerned that my wife, Lily, will sometime reach down to the bottom (because that’s where all the food is) and accidentally fall in! 

So we are in the market for a new freezer – a more “our sized” freezer.

But it’s not as simple as purchasing a slightly smaller one. The capacities are different with every brand, and the size of the freezers are surprising us. 

We want a freezer that has an inside capacity of about ten cubic feet. 

We thought that this would be a much smaller unit overall than the freezer we have now, but it’s not. Some models have the same outside dimensions as our present one with far less capacity! 

When you shop at Costco you know that if you want a bottle of Ketchup you are going to have to buy a monster size tub of it, or a multipack that will add up to the same amount as that monster tub. 

If you don’t want that size, you go to the regular grocery store where they have small, medium and large sizes to choose from. You won’t have to buy a massive container of Ketchup to only hold a medium amount of the stuff. 

Yet when it comes to freezers, we could buy a freezer that is five cubic feet smaller than the one we presently own … and it will take up more space in our basement! 

… Maybe it’s like toilet tanks. In the 90’s they started putting a layer of foam in the tanks so that they would hold less water and reduce the amount of water used per flush, all the while keeping the toilet tank dimensions the same size.

Maybe the walls and insulation on these new freezers is really thick. Maybe there are secret compartments inside these new freezers that you could use as a safe … or hide a stash of chicken wings that you bought on the sly that you don’t want your wife to know about!

We are just looking for a smaller freezer, one that has a smaller capacity AND a smaller footprint. 

I don’t think that should be too hard to find, but, for the life of me, we haven’t found one yet.

Here’s the thing: As we go through life we have a tendency to collect baggage. Whether that baggage comes in the form of work heartaches, relationship fails, sins, hurts, injury or sickness, our life’s footprint seems to get bigger with every new chapter of our lives. God wants to relieve us of that excess. The latest, newest chapter of your life can be the leanest if you will trust Him with all the bulk you carry around. Give it up to God and find a perfect fit.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What baggage do you need to give over to God? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Sometimes Being Counterintuitive Is Best

I’m always surprised when I do something that seems counterintuitive and it happens to be just the right thing to do.

counterintuitive

When you are hot and the sweat is pouring off you, your first reaction is to try to make yourself as cool as possible. 

After I have worked out in my home gym, I often take my t-shirt off because it’s wet, I’m hot, and I feel that I will cool down easier if my skin can breathe better. 

It makes sense … but not always. 

There have been times that I have had a cold or flu and have been running a fever. My head feels like it’s going to explode, I’m all stuffed up … you get the picture. 

I’m a bit of a mess.

Instead of getting under the covers and laying low, sometimes I have gone out and played hockey. In fact, I will wear an extra shirt under my pads and zip it up to try to sweat the cold or flu right out of my system.

I know that doesn’t sound like it would work, but it does and has … some of the time, on more than one occasion. There are times I’ve been just too sick to sweat it out. 

And when I have a cold, I will purposely go to bed in a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I’ll put an extra blanket over me with the hopes that by morning I will have broken my fever. 

My clothes may be drenched and I might be sweating, but many, many times I feel better when I wake up.

Sometimes doing the opposite of what you think you should do works in your favour.

The last couple of days I’ve had a stiff neck. I think a few muscle in my neck have been waging a little revolt on me for some reason. 

It’s sore. But rather than keeping my neck still, I’ve been doing exercises to stretch and compress the muscles that are in mutiny right now. 

It seems to be working, but let me tell you, I’ve gotten some strange looks from people when I’ve chosen to do these stretches in public. 

It looks odd to people when you are walking in a mall and are trying to bend your head in such a way as to get your ear to touch your shoulder, or at least move in that direction. 

It’s hard to see the road when you dip your head down and try to touch your chin to your chest. … I don’t do that one too often when I’m in the car.

This morning I played hockey. And even though my neck was sore before I started, as I played things began to loosen up until I didn’t even notice that my neck was stiff or sore.

We’ll see how I fare the rest of the day. Will my neck stiffen or become even more flexible?

Here’s the thing: The natural thing to do when you wrong someone or hurt someone is to stay clear. You pull back and try to avoid them. We do that with God, too. Maybe we are embarrassed; maybe we think He won’t forgive us, or that He will punish us. But doing the counterintuitive thing works best. It is amazing how apologizing to the person you’ve wronged or hurt actually makes it better. When we’ve sinned and go to God, He is waiting with open arms.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to do this week that seems counterintuitive? Leave your comments and questions below.

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It’s Fall – No Wait, It’s Winter

We were in the middle of enjoying some nice fall weather when, out of nowhere, winter broke in. 

Fall, Winter

Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but not much (note: I wrote this a week ago, so no, I’m not exaggerating). We were regularly experiencing temperatures in the teens a week ago, but now the mercury won’t raise to double digits.

It really hit home to me last night, but it’s been on my mind for a few days now. 

My wife, Lily, and I were at a hockey game last night and parked our car several blocks from the arena. It was cool walking from the car to the rink, but nothing like the walk back at 10:30 pm – that was bitter cold! It didn’t feel all that windy but the cold air was ripping right through us.

The worst part about it was that it was only -2 C outside, which should still be fall jacket weather.

But not last night. That -2 C felt like it was about -12 C or more.

Some regions don’t understand this, but here, whenever the temperature is given on radio or TV, it always comes with a caveat.

It goes something like, “The temperature in Kingston right now is -2, but with the wind chill it feels like -12”.

The temperature is never given without the “but with the wind chill …”

In the summer, they replace “but with the wind chill” and say “with the humidity, it feels like…”

We can’t get an actual temperature reading. Going by the thermometer just doesn’t do it here.

… Which also means that when Lily asks me EVERY time she leaves the house “what’s the temperature outside?”, it really doesn’t matter because that’s not what it feels like.

It’s like watching the national news on CTV or CBC. After you’re finished watching it, you know we were not given the truth, but you don’t know what the truth is. 

With our weather you literally have to go outside and stand there to get a real sense of what you will be facing when you actually leave your premises.

And that’s one of the differences between living here in Ontario to, say, Saskatchewan or Alberta.  

When you leave the house there you know what you are going out into. There is no guessing. 

Here you walk about twenty feet outside and you just have to make a comment on the weather,  like we did last night: “Man, it’s bitter cold out here!” 

Why didn’t I know that before I walked outside? Why did it take me by surprise? 

It’s because of that wind chill factor, that’s why. 

Wind chill is like the carbon monoxide or Radon of the outdoors. It’s colourless, tasteless, odourless, and it’s deadly. 

Oh look – I’m writing this blog post on November 10 about how winter has been sprung on us, while my grass is still green! 

I haven’t even collected the leaves off the lawn yet. 

If climate change is here, I’d like to know who’s benefiting from it … because we sure aren’t!

Here’s the thing: Sure, God has given us the Bible as a guide to living. He shows us His plan for this world and where it is all heading. We can see the provision God made for us all in Christ Jesus. But God also gave us the Holy Spirit. He’s like wind chill – you can’t see Him or feel Him. And you must be paying attention and listening to Him to receive guidance for your daily life. Be sure you recognize and pay attention to the Holy Spirit. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question:  What do you need more guidance regarding? Leave your comment and questions below.

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I Was Offended … Or Was I?

I can’t put a finger on the last time I was offended, but I’m sure it had to be in the last day or two. I’m sure of it because I don’t like what some people say about certain things.

I was Offended

People get offended all the time, and I know they get offended because they say so. There is not a day that goes by in the news that someone is not offended by something. 

One online dictionary definition of the word “offended” is “resentful or annoyed, typically as a result of a perceived insult.”

… I should be offended every time CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme tells me what Canada is thinking or feeling. She’s usually wrong when it comes to me, and that insults me that she would clump me in with every other Canadian. 

I have my own thoughts, thank you.  

Truthfully, even if I don’t like what some people say, I don’t take offence because I know they are stating an opinion. 

Opinions are just their own thoughts – that might be wrong, or only partially right. It’s not offensive because it’s JUST … THEIR … OPINION.

Maybe our skin needs to be a little thicker. We need to hear a speech we don’t agree with and not be so hurt or insulted … it’s just an opinion.

The other day on Hockey Night In Canada’s Coach’s Corner, Don Cherry (a hockey analyst) made some comments about Remembrance Day and poppies not being worn. 

Some people have jumped all over his comments as insulting and offensive to newer Canadians. … Probably most of them were not watching hockey that night, but news writers and broadcasters have made sure that everyone in Canada got a fair shot at hearing what they considered offensive.

But if they were not personally insulted by the comments, how could they be offended? 

The thing is, Don Cherry may have made some remarks that were not positive and uplifting to people who are new to Canada, but they were just his opinion.  

He may be completely wrong in his thinking, but let’s not act like we are all about 95 years old with skin so thin that it tears by just bumping into a door or something! 

I think it’s fine for people to point out that Don Cherry might be wrong in what he said. (It probably would be hard to actually prove him either wrong or right.) But they could have the opinion that he is wrong and offensive in what he said. 

But giving their opinion that way really should be offensive to Don Cherry. They certainly insulted him in their remarks.

That begs the question: Is it alright to offend someone who has already offended others? Is it correct to offend one person but not correct to offend a group of people?

What it comes down to is not whether individuals were offended or not, but rather that they didn’t like what was said and they didn’t agree with it. 

That is called “opinion” and we should all be able to have one, whether our opinion is right or wrong. 

And if you don’t agree with me, I’m offended. Hey, I think I may have just been offended today.

Here’s the thing: God says that there is one way to get into heaven and to escape hell, and that is to place your faith in Jesus Christ. Some people may not like to hear this; they may say it offends them. It offends them because they don’t want to agree with it or adhere to it. God is not offended; it is only their opinion. It will also not change their outcome. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to have thicker skin about? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Was Wrong But It’s Not Irreversible – Part 2

In my last post( read here) I wrote that doing something wrong is not irreversible. I had been doing up the straps on my knee brace in the wrong order for about twenty-nine years.

was wrong

The brace is still a saviour for me when it comes to sports – especially hockey – but for the last several months my knee has not been feeling very good. It’s been sore and sometimes a little swollen. 

But since I discovered the proper order to tighten the straps on my brace, it has made a huge difference. 

For the last while, I needed at least a day after I played for my knee to feel good enough for me to consider playing hockey again. Now my knee no longer feels sore, unstable, and tender for a period of time.

Not only have I corrected the wrong I had been committing for nearly thirty years, but in correcting that wrong I have seen an improvement in my knee’s stability. 

It is never too late to consider correcting something you have, for a long time, been doing wrong. 

When we elect a government, that year after year puts the country into a deeper and deeper debt position with seemingly uncontrolled spending, it is still correctable. 

We’ve seen it in the past. Where a government has been in power for years and an election has brought a new party into power, that change has brought the country back into fiscal responsibility. 

It’s also true with your conscience. 

We all have one. It’s that little inner sensation that tells us when we are doing something wrong or doing something right. 

Time after time we can go against our conscience in doing wrong and, after a while, we won’t have any sensation regarding that wrong. We will become numb to it; it won’t even register in our conscience any more. 

This can go on for years – just like all the years I was doing up my brace in the wrong order. 

But it is not irreversible.

If we admit we’ve done wrong – even though we don’t have a sensation about it from years and years of doing it – we can still correct it.

And when we start to correct the wrong, the amazing thing is that the sensation starts to slowly come back. Our conscience has never left us; it just grows quiet when we silence it. It can come back, be renewed, and be healthy again. 

I have a friend who smoked for years and years. He never thought anything of it, never considered anyone around him who didn’t smoke. 

Finally, after decades of smoking, he quit. Now he can’t stand the smell of cigarettes; he can’t bear being in a space where others are smoking. He thinks it’s insensitive of them to smoke with others present. His sensitivity came back. 

A long history of doing wrong is never irreversible.

Here’s the thing: You may have turned your back on God for years. Maybe you’ve never considered Him, never cared for Him. Don’t think your years of neglect and possible abusiveness towards God is irreversible. No, you can decide to reverse your wrongs by believing in Christ to save you from all the wrongs you’ve done for however many years you’ve been doing them. The Bible says you are then a new creation. It’s reversible. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question:  What have you previously been thinking is irreversible for you? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Was Wrong But It’s Not Irreversible – Part 1

Don’t ever think doing something wrong for a long time is irreversible.

was wrong

When you do something wrong for long enough, one has a sense that it will be permanent.

It’s probably true with some things that if you set a pattern, and that pattern is in place for a long time, it will not be broken. So if the pattern is wrong, that’s just what it will be.

Recently I was checking the knee brace I’ve worn for almost three decades. I wear it when I play sports, and particularly sports that require some side to side movement. 

I don’t wear my brace when I ride my bike or play golf, but I do for most other active sports – it gets lots of use.

Since I’ve had this brace for years, and my knee has been bugging me for several months now (I’ve written about that here), I decided to do some checking. Maybe it was time for a new brace. 

I looked up on the internet the company that makes my brace and found some instructional videos on their website. I clicked on one that was specific for my particular brace. 

The video was about how to properly put on the brace. I almost clicked it off because I certainly knew how to put mine on. But since it was such a short video, I watched the whole thing. 

What I discovered was that I’ve been putting on my brace the wrong way for almost 30 years! 

Now the brace is sophisticated – it’s custom made to my knee – but it’s not hard to put on.  

… But I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.

I’ve been doing it wrong in the order I do up the straps. There are only four straps but they need to be secured properly and in the right order. 

I was stunned that I had been doing them up incorrectly all this time. 

The next day at hockey I followed the order from the video. I secured the strap under my knee and then the strap at the bottom of my calf. Then I moved to the strap just above my knee but didn’t secure it quite as tight as I normally would have. I finished with the strap around my thigh, done up a little looser. 

Wow, what a difference! My brace felt so much better while I played and it seemed to stay in place without moving down my leg. 

It was amazing.

Who would have thought that, for all these years, I have gotten away with doing up my brace incorrectly? Yet the brace didn’t break and it still provided some support to my knee. 

I would not have been able to play hockey or baseball or volleyball without it. I would not have been able to ski without wearing that brace … but I’ve been using it incorrectly this whole time. 

I have more to share on this in my next post, but …

Here’s the thing: It’s not that surprising that we can be doing something wrong for a long time and not really have any repercussions. This happens with some sin. We can live in a sin for a long time without seemingly suffering any ill effects from it – no repercussions, no judgements. But there will be a judgement day. As long as you are breathing, you have time to right your wrong.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you been doing wrong for a long time that you should change? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Reflecting On Your Life Is The Start Of A Change

Today, after I got home from the rink, I was reflecting on my play. 

reflecting on your life

It wasn’t my most stellar day on the ice: in the first shift I ran into one of my teammates by the boards and fell down. In two attempts to get up, I fell or almost fell over again. 

Some of the guys I’ve played with for years got concerned. They know I’ve had a heart attack … and that it happened playing hockey … though that was seven years ago. 

Several guys asked me if I was alright, and suggested that I should sit on the bench for a bit. 

I knew that I was fine, but I did feel a little embarrassed that I had trouble getting back up on my feet.

If I had a video of me playing pickup with the boys last year at this time, and compared it to video of my game today, I think it would show a huge difference.

I’ve lost a few really noticeable steps in my game, and in only one year.

It’s similar to watching a movie you like over and over again for years. Then when the actor makes a new movie, you notice, “Wow. They’ve all of a sudden really aged.” 

You were so used to seeing them at the age they were when the first movie came out that it’s a shocker to see them in their present state.

The Bourne movies are like that for me. There were three movies that came out over the course of three years: Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum.

They are probably my favourite movies of all time. I’ve watched them over and over.

Then, about nine years later, they made another Bourne movie that was simply called, “Jason Bourne”.

Wow, what a difference! The actor, Matt Damon, had really aged in that one. He still had some of his brilliance from the earlier movies, but he was a little more ragged. 

We don’t see the aging process in the movies. The actors are stuck in time; they seem timeless.

Oh, but not me; I’ve aged. I’m only one year older than last year, but I feel like I’m five years older on the ice.

For me it’s not a time trick or a movie illusion. As I was reflecting on it today, for me it’s my knee.

My knee has been causing me problems (I wrote about it here) and has then made my on-ice experience more complicated.

Because my knee has been weak, I haven’t exercised much. I’ve also cut down on how much hockey I play this year. Those are two things that degrade my play.

But there is another spinoff effect and that is, I’ve gained weight. I’m about 10 pounds heavier than last year at this time and, for me, that’s a big deal when skating.  

Because my knee has been sore, I’ve not exercised and, because I’ve not exercised, I’ve gained weight. 

So today, reflecting on all these issues have made me feel like I’ve aged several years on the ice. 

Somehow I need to roll back the time.

Here’s the thing: If there’s something in your life that you’re putting off dealing with, something that you think you don’t need to make right with God at this time, beware that it might not take long before your life shows signs of problems in other areas because of one area you refused to make right with God. Don’t make that mistake. At present, you may be showing more than your age.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to take to God right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Goodbye End; Hello Beginning

The end has come, but the beginning will start soon. … I never would have said those words years ago, but they are fitting today.

Goodbye end; hollow beginning

Today we close up our cottage for the season and we won’t be back until the end of April or beginning of May – that is six months from now. 

… The end of the cottage season has come to a screeching halt. There will be no more trips up here for six months. 

Today I will put the finishing touches on the close. The final task before turning off the power and locking doors is blowing out the water lines. 

They say that everyone has the same amount of time, that we all have 24 hours in a day, and 365 days in a year. 

We all work within those time constraints, but I tell you that time seems shorter for me these days. That 24 hours for me is not like 24 hours for a 7 year old. 

I remember being young and trying to savour every bit of my birthday because the next birthday seemed forever away. 

I remember thinking that grade two was never going to end and that grade three would never happen. Well, that’s partly because I repeated grade two.  

But there was this sense that, in some cases, time seemed to stand still. 

When the summer was over, it wasn’t coming back any time soon.

But that is not the case now. Today we will lock up the cottage and walk away from it for the entire winter … but that time seems to go so fast now. 

It won’t be long before we are back at this place. The leaves will be budding on the trees and not falling off as they are now. Everything will be turning green, new and fresh, and not brown, yellow, red and orange. 

Now all the foliage is decaying – I filled three big paper yard bags full of shredded leaves yesterday. When we come back the grass will be growing at a rapid rate.

Between now and then, the same amount of time passes as it always has. But the time seems to pass more quickly.

I know this because it doesn’t seem that long ago that we were making our first trip of the season to the cottage. 

And that time has gone so quickly!

Yesterday I shot some video with my drone – sort of my way of saying goodbye to our retreat place (you can check it out here).

That video will stay on my YouTube channel all winter long and through the spring. But any time I look at those clips I will not be thinking of that day, but about the days to come. 

Maybe that is why time seems to go so fast. We are looking forward to what is coming up ahead. 

Children live in the moment and time seems to stand still for them. Adults look to tomorrow and time seems to move at lightning speed.

Maybe we need a little balance between living in the moment and looking to tomorrow.

Here’s the thing: Christ will come one day and this life we have had here will seem like it was a flash in time. The eternity that lies ahead of us, what we have anticipated for so long, will stretch before us as endless days to be savoured moment by moment. We will be able to live in the moment AND look forward to tomorrow … provided that we have here and now made the commitment to follow Jesus and submit our lives to Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How would living in the moment help you? Leave you comments and questions below.