time

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Linger Longer To Impact Relationships More

I think we need to linger more in order to enrich our lives. 

linger longer to impact relationships more

When I grew up playing hockey, my routine was to get into the dressing room late. I would have just enough time to put on my equipment and get onto the ice. At the end of the game, I would do the reverse. I would change quickly and be the first one out of the dressing room.

I think I have carried that practice into other areas of my life. 

But I hope to change that if I can. 

I don’t know how many golf games I’ve played with friends where we didn’t linger after the game. It seemed that there was always somewhere we had to be next. Whether that was getting home for dinner or to a meeting, there always seemed to be a bit of a rush to leave the course. 

That’s not the way it always was though. 

I remember playing golf with the same buddies at 7:20 Saturday mornings. When we finished we would sit in the club house and talk about our game and life for another hour.

I didn’t realize how much I missed that part of the game. I say that like lingering in the club house is part of the golf game because there is something to that. 

You see, by lingering after a game you savour the time you spent together knocking balls into holes.

Later I regularly played with another group of friends. We had a standing Thursday night 9 holes … or more if we could still see the ball.

Afterwards we went to McDonald’s for ice cream cones or sundaes. What we were doing is lingering.

I realized that I enjoyed that part as much as I enjoyed playing golf with those guys. 

There really is something to this lingering. You miss something in the connection when you don’t linger. 

This reflection of mine started this week because a friend called me up. He knew Lily was away and wondered if I wanted to have dinner together.

We had some extra time before we were ready to eat so we met at my house, talked for a while, then picked up a pizza and came back to my house. 

We just hung out. And that’s what lingering is. It enriches a relationship. 

We hang out lots as kids, but somewhere in adulthood we forget or get too busy to hang out, to linger. 

Today I played hockey. I got there a little late and had to quickly get ready. That’s my style. But after the game, I was the last one to leave the dressing room. I lingered. 

And that is where connections are made.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes people wonder why they don’t feel all that close to God, to the point where they wonder if He is even all that close. I can tell you one thing, if you linger with God, that’s when you find your relationship with Him is enriched. You won’t wonder why God doesn’t feel close; you will experience His presence in rich and meaningful ways. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who do you need to linger with? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Neglecting Things Is More Than A Time Issue

I’ve been thinking lately that I need to make more time for some things I have been neglecting. 

neglecting things is more that a time issue

… Actually, it would be nice if I could make more time, like take some electricity, insert it into a vacuum and somehow – poof! – have some extra time that no one else had, just personal time for me.

But that wouldn’t work. I’m sure there are a few more ingredients I’d have to add to “make time”.

Even with more personal time, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that I would use it for something I’ve been neglecting. I proved that this weekend. 

I had some time alone because Lily was away. But instead of using some of that time to focus on things I’ve been neglecting, I worked more.

I worked on a few things that I probably wouldn’t have if Lily had been home. I certainly would not have worked as late if she had been here. 

So making time for something I’ve neglected does not move me to action. 

Time is not my only issue. I also need the will to do something. 

I need to be motivated to do the things I’ve neglected. 

Motivation is what gets you off the couch and on your feet. It comes from a vision inside you of what could be. 

Motivation isn’t a pie-in-the-sky kind of vision; it is a realistic vision that you believe can be realized. 

Motivation is not fantasy.

For me, to get to those things I’ve neglected, I need to think about them – even for a brief moment – to get an image in my mind of what could be. 

With time and motivation, I could tackle anything I have been neglecting.  

… Yet I did have time and I did have some motivation this weekend. Still I didn’t get to some things I have been neglecting. So there must be something else that keeps me from getting to my neglected items. 

I think I know what it is. 

There is another element that will take the time I have and the vision in my mind and put them together. It is opportunity. 

Some people say you make your own opportunities, but that is not always correct. Sometimes there are outside forces that either provide opportunities or don’t. 

This weekend I thought about flying my drone. It had been over a month since I had last flown it. I had time and, certainly with Lily away, I could make time to get out and drone. 

Motivation is not usually an issue for me because I can easily envision what kind of video to create from the drone shots I take. 

But there has to be opportunity. Though the time was available and I was motivated, the weather didn’t provide the opportunity. 

I hope it won’t be too long before these three things come together and I can get out there and fly.

Here’s the thing: God has graciously given us time to discover He is worthy of our worship. By sending His Son to die for our sins and forgive us, God has given us opportunity to worship Him, for we cannot really worship God without being forgiven. And what about motivation? When you observe the beauty and intricacies of this created world and realize God’s loving act of forgiveness and sacrifice for us, that should motivate us to worship and love Him in return. … You have the time, motivation and opportunity to know and worship God – it’s time to act.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s something you have been neglecting? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Your Time Has Boundaries That Change

There are certain things you will do no matter what time it is. But what I have found is that what you will do at any time can change.

your time has boundaries that change

Here is an example of what I’m talking about: When I was in my teens, if someone said, “Paul, we have ice at 2:00 am Saturday morning,” my response would be, “I’ll be there. What arena?” 

At that stage in my life, it didn’t matter what time of day or night I would play hockey. I was on call 24/7. 

But that is not how I feel about playing hockey today. I still love playing just as much as I did back then, but now I have limits – or should I say boundaries – as to when I will play.

For years guys have asked me if I wanted to play hockey on their teams. My answer has always been the same: I don’t like playing the late games. 

Adult hockey usually starts at 8:00 pm in the evening and by the time you get home it’s 10:00 or 10:30 pm. 

But that’s not all. When you get home that late after playing hockey, you are still wired. You can’t just flop on your bed and fall asleep. You have to unwind for a while. That means you are not getting to bed until 11:30 pm or 12:00 am.

If you have to get up in the morning, it’s a killer. 

And then think about the games that start at 9:00, 10:00 pm or later. 

I once played an 11:30 game, got cut and needed to go after the game to the hospital for stitches. The emergency was empty that night but I still got home at about 3:00 am. 

Not much sleep to go on to teach Sunday school the next day … or should I say, later that morning. 

So now when someone says to me, “Hey Paul, we have ice. You want to play?” I respond with, “What time?”

I won’t do late any more.

It’s true with a lot of things. I will do it in keeping with the boundaries I’ve set. 

But just the other day I threw out the boundaries and agreed to get my hair cut whenever a time was available. 

I would not normally book a haircut in the morning. I usually have things already scheduled then. But when you haven’t had a haircut for 3 1/2 months, you are willing to take any appointment. 

I called my barber at the first of the week and he hemmed and hawed. I told him it didn’t have to be that day, and he responded with “I realize that”. He paused a few more seconds and then said, “How early do you get up? How about 7:00 am Saturday?”

I didn’t even flinch. “I’ll be there,” I replied. It was like the guy had booked a sheet of ice. 

I’d get up to play hockey at 7:00 am on a Saturday. It turns out I’d get up to get my hair cut at 7:00 am too. 

… Well, not always.

Here’s the thing: When something is really important to you, you will change your schedule, make exceptions and do what you have to do in order to accommodate that important thing. Well, consider your relationship with God. If He is important to you, what lengths will you go to in order to spend time with Him? I hope you can respond, “I’ll be there”.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What stands in your way of spending quality time with God each day? Leave your comments and questions below.

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It Really Was 24 Hours

This morning I’m writing about 24 hours – not the TV show, “24 Hours”, that starred Kiefer Sutherland; I never watched that series. 

I’m writing about a 24 hour period of time. 

We get these every day, and spend some of that time working, relaxing, shopping, playing and, of course, sleeping. 

On Wednesday Lily and I left Madrid, Spain on an Air Canada flight to Toronto. We left just after 1 pm in the afternoon, Madrid time. 

We arrived in Toronto at about 3 pm in the afternoon, Toronto time. That sounds like it was a pretty short trip, but when you do the math and factor in the six hour time difference, it was an 8 hour flight. Three in the afternoon in Toronto is nine at night in Spain.

Our day had started at 6 am at a hotel by the Madrid airport. Lil and I exercised, had breakfast, packed and headed to the airport. 

By the time we landed in Toronto, got through customs and were picked up by my brother to go back to his house where we had left our vehicle, it was getting close to dinner time. 

We caught up with my brother and sister in-law and at about 7 pm left for home.

For Lily and I, it was really 12:30 am by then. 

We can normally make it home in about two and a half to three hours, but the roads were bad. It was snowing, the roads were greasy, and the traffic on the 401 was heavy.

It took us about four hours to get home, sometimes traveling as slow as 50 kms per hour. 

That meant that for Lily and I, we had been up for over 22 hours. By the time we unpacked and got ourselves into bed, we’d been up for almost 24 hours.

Lil actually cheated a little because she slept for part of the drive home, but that was the first all-nighter I’d pulled in years.

That’s not to say I’m unfamiliar with them, though. 

I remember being up all night with friends back in high school – usually we were up to no good.

In college I would regularly have to pull all-nighters to get a paper done on time. 

And when I was a youth pastor, we would have all night events. That’s right, on purpose we would have high school students stay up all night. We thought that was fun back then. Well, the students thought it was fun; the leaders, not so much. 

I had one leader who finally declared she was not doing the all night events any more. Lily later pulled the same trick and blamed it on the fact that she had two little kids at home who needed her.

Needless to say, it’s been a long while since I failed to sleep for a 24 hour period of time. 

The crazy thing about this time was that I never felt like I had hit the wall. I never had that jittery, crummy feeling that you get when you go without sleep.

Here’s the thing: I’ve had enough experience staying up all night to know what it feels like. I’ve also driven when I’m tired and know what that feels like to keep your eyes on the road. God gives us what we need, and I needed to stay awake until I got home despite being up for 24 hours. When my head hit the pillow, however, I think I was asleep in under a minute. … God graciously gives us what we need when we need it. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When have you gotten just what you needed from God? Leave your comments below.

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We Buy Time With The Meaningless

People often use pat answers and lines to buy themselves some time in responding to a request … but those words mean nothing.

We’ve probably all done it. … Someone asks us to pass something or come here, and we answer, “Yes. Give me a second.” 

What do we mean by “a second”? … because really that second is over by the time we’ve said it and we don’t yet intend on making good on the request. 

My wife, Lily, uses the phrase all the time, “Just give me a minute”.  I’ve heard it so much, I don’t want to hear that phrase ever again. 

The other day while we were in the car, I was telling her something while she was responding to a text. She said, “Just give me a minute.” 

So I paused the conversation. I waited. We went through two traffic lights before she was done. … I should say, we stopped at two red lights, waited until they were green, and kept driving before she responded. 

I started to do some calculating. When Lily says, “just give me a minute” she really means give me 15 minutes. 

Now in the Bible there is a verse that says, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8) 

So I started to do some calculations in my head … 

If her one minute is like 15 minutes, and there are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day … that means one day to Lily is like 15 days! 

And then a whole bunch of things started to make sense to me. 

She is never late for anything, even when I wait for her at the door for 5 or 10 minutes before we leave. In her mind she’s early – she’s still 140 minutes early! 

And another thing that I understand now is when she can’t remember something we talked about, something she was even passionate about the day before. 

For her that conversation was over two weeks ago! No wonder she can’t remember it. Who could remember word for word something from that long ago? 

I thought she needed to do more Sudukos to keep her mind sharp. But her mind is like a razor when she can recall something I promised to do earlier in the day – that’s about four days ago to her and she still snapped that promise back to me in a flash. 

Here I was criticizing her and she’s really a superwoman. 

The downside to this new revelation that I’ve been given is when I come home from work, suffering from a little hypoglycemia, and usually a little “hangry” by the time I walk through the door. 

When I then ask if dinner is ready and Lily says, “Just give me a minute”, I know it’s going to be forever before I eat … and I will be dead by then.

I can’t see any way that I benefit from this new discovery. So for my own self-preservation I have to declare her phrase of “just give me a minute” as meaningless. 

Here’s the thing: God can operate outside of time. So when things don’t seem to be working the way we would like them to, in the time frame that we are subjected to, and have subjected them to, we know that God can still bring the very best outcome because He’s not restricted by time. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What phrase has become meaningless to you? Leave your comments below.

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I Wish I Could Expand Time

Time never expands but the things we do often expand to take up more time than we think.

We can’t add to time, but we can plan less so that we end up with time to spare.

But really, who does that? Not many people. Most people run late because they try to do more than they can get done in the time given them.

We think we can do things in “X” amount of time but most often we miscalculate, or something interrupts to eat away at the time we have.

It’s sort of like cracks on the road. Water gets in them and then freezes. The frozen water expands, overfills the crack and eventually breaks up the pavement, creating potholes.

That’s what happens to our time. It’s like a crack that gets filled up but then whatever fills it expands past the time we have.

The other day I was working on a project that I gave the whole day to. I finished the main part of the project well under the time I had allotted.

But after the main part was finished, there were other parts of the project that also needed to be done, like PowerPoint presentations, online notes, and presentation notes.

I had a lot of time to get them done by the end of the day though. So I was feeling pretty good about myself. I felt like the pressure was off and I might even surprise my wife, Lily, by getting home early.

But later in the afternoon things started to expand. I also didn’t account for my drop in energy so I wasn’t accomplishing tasks at the same rate I had been in the morning.

But worse than that, one task expanded to fill up the time I had left. I never saw it coming. I never accounted for it.

I was in the the last stages of my afternoon. I don’t usually listen to music while I work because it’s a distraction to me; I think better when it’s quiet.

But the work I was doing didn’t require much thinking, mostly performing rote tasks that I have been doing each week for years.

So I turned some music on. Sure it would slow me down, but I still had lots of time, more time than I needed … until I couldn’t find a picture I wanted for my presentation.

I looked and looked and it literally took a half hour to find the picture I needed. And then I only found it by fluke in my email trash bin.

That one little thing had expanded past my allotted time. When I left for home, I still had one task undone; I hadn’t even started it.

Time doesn’t change, and though we plan and organize our day to live within the confines of the time we have, things seem to expand to the point that they overwhelm our time.

Here’s the thing: What I have also found true is that when you take time to worship God, your worship expands to overfill the time you set aside for it. This happens because you are relating and dialoging with the Lord, and good relationships take time – often more than we realize. So whatever time you set aside for God, know that if you are truly developing your relationship, you will eventually have to increase the time you allot for God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What expands to fill up your time more than anything else? Leave your comments below.

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This Time Change Is Really Affecting My Rhythm

I never really noticed how the time change affected me before, but my sleeping sure has been altered in the last two nights.

I like the fall change because you get an extra hour of sleep … or at least that’s the theory.

In reality, it’s a license to stay up an hour longer … but even that turns into more like two hours.

So I actually get less sleep but only half as much less sleep than if I had stayed up two hours later the night before the time change.

I usually like to get to bed early on Saturday night because I have to preach the next morning. I don’t know why, but this Saturday night I was wide awake, so I stayed up a little longer than I should have.

For some crazy reason, however, I woke up way earlier than normal – at 4:30 a.m.! And I’m not that guy who gets up by my internal clock. I need an alarm or I would keep sleeping.

I just lay there going over my sermon in my head. By the time 6 a.m. rolled around and it was time to get up, I had basically rehearsed my whole sermon in my mind.

If you’re doing the math, no, I don’t preach for an hour and a half; there were gaps and times I struggled to remember what came next.

Surprisingly, when I got up, I didn’t feel tired or like I hadn’t gotten much sleep that night. I did, however, take a rather long nap Sunday afternoon.

I thought it was a fluky thing until this morning. Again I woke up very early, and again I rolled around in bed, this time without a sermon to keep my mind occupied.

I thought of random things for about an hour until my alarm went off and it was time for me to get up.

Now I’m thinking that the time change has affected my sleeping patterns and I hoping it won’t last too long.

I also found out that this time change is a lot more dangerous than I ever imagined it would be.

It turns out there are more accidents on the roads the Monday after a time change.

And then there are the physical problems! Apparently studies show there are more heart attacks, strokes are more frequent, and cases of depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) also rise.

… Not to mention headaches for those who suffer from them.

They say it all has to do with our circadian rhythm being disrupted. Your circadian rhythm regulates your 24-hour internal clock and it does it based on light.

I don’t know much about all that stuff but I want my rhythm back before something disastrous happens!

Here’s the thing: There are many things that can disrupt your walk with God. It might be sleep, it could be sin, or it could be some distraction that you are focussing on. My advice is to stick with a routine of meeting with God, continue to confess your sin, keep praising Him, keep looking into the scriptures for what He’s saying to you. You will get your rhythm back. Check out what Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message by Eugene Peterson); its all right there:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gets you out of your rhythm with God? Leave your comments below.

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I Was Stuck At This Red Light Forever

The other night I was stuck at a red light for an inordinate amount of time.

I was on my way to our cottage for my yearly planning retreat. On one stretch of highway, that is only one lane in each direction, there was work being done on a bridge.

I don’t know what it is with little bridges but they seem to be the hardest things in the world to fix. It takes months and months and, in some cases, years to repair them.

This bridge is no exception., I think they could build a huge suspension bridge over a vast canyon quicker than completing the repair work to this bridge.

With the work being done on the bridge, it is down to one lane … That’s it! – one lane for traffic going in both directions.

This bridge is maybe only 30 feet in length, but it completely controls the traffic flow.

When I got to the bridge, and saw about 10 vehicles ahead of me, I naturally thought we would get our chance to cross the bridge in no time.

At first I didn’t even put the car in park; I just kept my foot on the brake. I didn’t think this would take long at all.

Boy was I wrong! The cars coming the other way just kept coming. The worst part was there were breaks in the traffic.

Seven, eight or nine cars would pass by going south and then there would be nothing. Every time there was a break, I thought, “Okay, the light changed and now it’s our turn to go.”

No. Just when I thought it would be time for us to start moving, I would see headlights coming from the other direction and another 10, maybe 12 cars, would drive by.

Ten minutes we waited with no sign that we were going to get a green light in the next little while … or month!

But there was a sign of hope.

Just a few yards ahead of me was a gravel road. I quickly looked at the maps on my phone and made a real fast decision to cut out of the line and take a detour.

No one else was doing it but I thought, “Someone has to start it up.”

I cut out of the line and made a break for it. The detour took me about 10 minutes but I came out well beyond the traffic interruption.

When I got to the crossroads to join up with the original highway I had been on, there was a stop light and I had to make a left turn.

As I waited for the light to turn green – because, of course, there was no way I would get a green light when I approached the intersection – I noticed a truck pass by.

I had a suspicion that I’d seen that truck before.

After I got back on the highway, and caught up to the traffic, I was sure it was the same truck. … And I was in the exact same position behind the truck as I was when we had been stuck at the light.

I didn’t gain one inch.

Here’s the thing: Impatience gets us to act, but sometimes our actions don’t really do us any good. When we are impatient with God, our impatience can lead us to take action that just gets in the way of what God is doing. It might delay things further or worse, it could set us back. Wait on God and don’t let your impatience cause you to try to circumvent God’s plan.

That’s life!

Paul

Question: What delays have caused you to be impatient with God? Leave your comments below.

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When A Project Takes A Long Time To Develop

Sometimes you wait a long time for something to develop, then in a flash it’s done and it’s completion takes you by surprise.

It happened to me this morning. For what seemed like several weeks, the leaves on our maple tree were budding.

But we’ve had some pretty cool and rainy weather for the last while and it seemed that the leaves’ progress from bud to full grown was stunted.

I’d look out our living room window and see the little leaves still shrivelled up, not wanting to open. With every day of rain and coolness, it was like they just wanted to stay curled up to keep warm.

After a time I wondered if they would open up at all this year. Maybe they would stay in this dormant state all summer.

But this morning after an early hockey game, as I drove into my driveway, the sun was shining, creating highlights and shadows on and around our tree.

The leaves had opened up; they were big and full and dense.

Up until this morning, though all the leaves were on the tree, you could still see through it … not this morning.

The leaves have now created a beautiful rustling wall to the other side of the street.

It took so long for the leaves to get to this point, but when it happened, it took me by surprise.

You kind of forget about the incremental progress that was being made, now that the tree is in its full glory.

… I’ve been working on a project at work that is developing much like how our tree came alive this spring.

There have been many steps to the project, and many different people involved. It seemed that each step, however, was dependent on someone else do some little thing so that we could progress to the next step.

There also seemed to be one person who was in the middle of the progress or the hold up – just like the weather was the hold up for my tree.

We would get one thing done and then we would sit, not really knowing what to do next but having to follow up and nudge this person to move the project along.

After numerous phone calls over three days, I finally reached him in person. I explained our progress and asked him for his input. All he could say to me was, “I’m just the middle man.”

There were three parties that were involved in bring this project to completion. He worked for none of them. He was just the middle man.

We all needed him but the speed of the project was dictated by the speed of his response to each completed step.

I think this project right now is at the stage where the leaves are almost ready to unfold.

All I can hope is that by early next week this project will be fully complete and I can forget about the incremental progress that we’ve made along the way.

Here’s the thing: God’s plan for us, at times, may seem to be developing slower than we would like. That can be frustrating. We might want to try to get in there and hurry it along on our own. But there are many parties involved in a plan, and there may be a middle man who is slowing things down. Just be sure that you are not that middle man.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What project is God working on in you that you would like to speed up? Leave your comments below.

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How To Get The Pie You Really Want

Most people like pie. In fact, if you ask anyone, they will tell you what their favourite pie is.

Classic-Raspberry-Pie-2

We all have a favourite.

When I was young, my aunt took me to a restaurant and for dessert she ordered me a piece of lemon meringue pie.

That immediately became my favourite … but I was young and impressionable at the time and I did not have a lot of experience with pie.

I learned over the years that there were many pies that I could consider as dear to my heart. But there became one pie that stood out from all the rest …

Raspberry pie.

You see, we had a large raspberry patch in our backyard and we enjoyed raspberries for a good portion of the summer. Every year my mom would make one or two pies from the fruit of the patch.

It takes a lot of raspberries to make a pie … well, to make a real pie –  it’s just raspberries and sugar. (My mouth started to water as I wrote that last sentence.)

I would savour that pie and, if I was lucky, I would get two pieces. They were so good I had to lick the plate! I know that’s not polite to do, but when something is that good you can’t let any of it escape your taste buds, can you?

Since that time, when I’m looking for a piece of pie, I’m always on a quest for raspberry.

I remember one time stopping on the side of the road in the country. A little old woman was selling pies and she had a raspberry one. I was so excited I bought it and couldn’t wait to get it home to eat. But my joy turned to disappointment at the first bite.

I couldn’t believe a grandmotherly, farm lady would make her pie out of jam! There should be a law against that.

You get the idea that raspberry pies are sacred to me and they need to be crafted in a purely natural way, without foreign additives.

So you can understand that at our church Christmas dinner, where the men were requested to bring pies for dessert, I kind of put a plug in for raspberry pies.

I had good intentions. I figured that since I was usually near the end of the line when it came to the meal, if there were a few raspberry pies, I might have a chance to get a piece.

Well, yesterday was our church Christmas dinner, and I guess I pumped up the raspberry pie pretty good because someone told me there were about six!

I shouldn’t have been worried. I should have been patient, but when I saw the lineup for dessert, I couldn’t help but eat faster.

I was one of the last to go through the meal line, and many were finishing their dinner when I was starting. So when I finished my food, I snuck to the front of the dessert line and snagged me a piece of my precious!

I’m not proud of it, but it didn’t sour the taste of that delicious raspberry pie going down … with a little whip cream on top too!

Here’s the thing: We go to great lengths to get something that we really like or want. We don’t let obstacles get in our way. We need to be that way with God. We should not let anything get in the way of our relationship with Him. Let nothing stop you from spending time with Him … that”s how much we should want God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What lengths have you gone to to get your favourite pie? Leave your comment below.