{"id":1078,"date":"2014-01-16T08:26:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T13:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2014-01-23T15:12:26","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T20:12:26","slug":"time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1078","title":{"rendered":"Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"alarm<\/a>Last Saturday I went to a memorial service for a young man named \u201cJack.\u201d\u00a0 He was 20 years old.\u00a0 A beautiful young man who \u00a0I knew from church youth group. \u00a0He was quiet and soft-spoken (at least around me) but had the most wonderful smile; it was a caring, loving grin that covered not only his face but seemed to consume his entire being.\u00a0 His eyes suggested he was seeing something wonderful and amazing every minute.\u00a0 A beautiful young man.<\/p>\n

At his memorial service the opening scripture was from Ecclesiastes.\u00a0 It was a passage that most of us would recognize.<\/p>\n

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, \u2026; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.\u00a0<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here was a young man who left us after only twenty years.\u00a0 His time was so woefully short.<\/p>\n

Time is one of the most valuable and irreplaceable things we possess. We can\u2019t buy it.\u00a0 We can\u2019t build it.\u00a0 We can\u2019t borrow it. Yet it is one of the things we squander most readily.\u00a0 We waste time.\u00a0 We spend it doing silly things, stupid things, harmful things, but most of all we spend our time doing meaningless things.<\/p>\n

We hoard our money.\u00a0 We invest in and insure our stuff.\u00a0 We cradle and caress our prized possessions.\u00a0 But so often we squander our time.<\/p>\n

I am not one to look back and I am not one to live with regrets, but if I had one regret (actually, I have many) it would be to reallocate the time I have spent over the last 57 years.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been the best steward of my time.\u00a0 Writer Malcolm Muggeridge entitled his autobiography \u201cChronicles of Wasted Time.\u201d\u00a0 That could certainly be the title to my autobiography, perhaps many others as well.<\/p>\n

My children are growing older and are moving on with their careers and families.\u00a0 And I (often painfully) realize that I won\u2019t be able to get to do those days over when they were home.<\/p>\n

With every day, I realize that the most precious gift I can give my children is my time.\u00a0 Moreover, with every day I realize that the most precious gift my children can give me is their time.<\/p>\n

Time forces choice.<\/p>\n

While in Thailand, I was talking to my daughter, who is 24, and she spoke to me of all the things she wanted to do in her life.\u00a0 Marriage, travel, teach, learn languages, raise a family, join the Peace Corps.<\/p>\n

How am I going to do all these things, Daddy?<\/i> she asked.\u00a0 I told her what my Dad told me:\u00a0 You can do anything you want.\u00a0 You just can\u2019t do everything you want.\u00a0<\/i> There\u2019s not enough time.<\/p>\n

The Bible tells us that God blessed one day of the week, the Sabbath, and made it holy. That is, He tells us that time is holy.\u00a0 Those precious hours, when I set aside my work and busyness to focus on my relationships with God and my family\u2014this is God\u2019s most precious gift.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not waste it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I went to a memorial service for a young man named \u201cJack.\u201d\u00a0 He was 20 years old.\u00a0 A beautiful young man who \u00a0I knew from church youth group. \u00a0He was quiet and soft-spoken (at least around me) but had the most wonderful smile; it was a caring, loving grin that covered not only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119],"tags":[164,120],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}