Have you ever wondered why we need watches? Have you ever tried going for a few hours, a day, perhaps, without looking at the time? Have you ever seen the difference ‘not being on the clock’ or working to a schedule does to your wellbeing, or way of life? We can no doubt agree that there’s a difference in how we move through life when on a break from a pre-scheduled existence…whether you are working or self-employed with KPIs, life is different when you are on holiday.
In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, King Solomon speaks extensively about the importance of time, saying, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
King Solomon was speaking of times and seasons. What season do you find yourself in? Are you building, planting, or are you reaping the benefits of your building season? Do you even know what season you’re in? Is it possible to know what season you are in, and is that season linear? Have you ever had those moments of comparing yourself to others, thinking ‘you should be further along in life like so and so’ —all of it coming from a place of comparing your station in life with someone you went to school with?
The bible says in Galatians 6:4-5 (NIV) ‘Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load’. Theodore Roosevelt summarised it by simply stating that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’. Would you agree that we compare ourselves with others without consideration of the due process that was required from that person to get to where they are? without acknowledging what might have been the ‘work required’ to become something worth being ‘coveted’?
Habakkuk 2:3 ‘For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end of it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry’. I would like to encourage you to consider this promise for yourself – that what you see for yourself, what you wish for yourself, is possible, but at an appointed time, once you’ve been through a process. Galatians 4:4 (NIV): ‘but when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law’. Even God had an appointed time when He sent His Son. And Jesus walked this earth, did what He came to do, and at the right time, at the appointed time, He died on the cross and returned home to His Father.
There’s a pathway and a season to your life; trust the process, don’t compare yourself to others. Your time is the most precious commodity you have — use it to ensure that you are inching closer and closer to what you envision for yourself. You may not be where you want to be, but I bet that if you look back, you will be grateful that you are no longer where you used to be.
