We were on a schedule. The clock was ticking, and we were behind. I couldn’t blame my crew, even though I would have liked to. They had showed up every day, worked hard and did what I had asked. No matter how I looked at it, it was my fault. Underestimating the job, bad planning and just plain out and out wrong thinking. Now there was nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide. I would have to go to the general contractor hat in hand and beg for more time. The problem was compounded by the fact that the contractor’s superintendent and I had already come to blows several times and I was sure he was going to relish seeing me squirm and even then, not let me off the hook even if I was only asking for a few more days.
As I left the jobsite that night, I had decided to wait till morning to work up all the humility I could overnight. Instead, I went straight to the bar and got roaring drunk only to end up sitting next to the very man I was supposed to talk to in the morning. Why was he here anyways? I had never seen him in this bar before and in fact I was told he was a tea toddler, one of those holy roller types. In my drunken stupor I decided there was no time like the present. I might as well bite the bullet and get it over with.
As I turned to him, I could see he was already looking me over like a shark coming in for the kill. Was he smiling or smirking at my pain? Then he did something completely unexpected he put his hand on my shoulder and calmly said,
“John, I know you are in trouble. In fact, I knew you were in trouble from the get-go when I saw you had underestimated your work on this project. I came here tonight to make you an offer. It is a onetime thing and if you refuse, I will never offer it again.”
He stopped and I was about to speak but he nodded for me to be quiet and continued.
“I have talked it over with my boss. I explained that you and your crew have worked hard and better than I could have asked. That I had pushed you to gain on the schedule. Now I wanted to give you one chance to have the time you need to get caught up.”
With that he stopped again and looked away. This time I waited, and he finally spoke,
“Tomorrow is Thursday, I will give you until Monday morning. If you have to work overtime that is your business. If you have to work this weekend. Do it. I am offering you the time you need to get out of this hole you are in.”
He took a deep breath and then lean toward me,
“You’re a good man, John, but it is time for you to think about your life and what you are doing with it. Go home, get some sleep and I will see you in the morning.”
With that he left, never allowing me to speak at all. I sat staring into my drink too drunk to know I had been given a great gift. Without asking I had been given the time I needed. I had been given grace.
Have you ever thought of time as a gift? I don’t think most of us do. Mainly because we are too busy filling time with all sorts of things that really have no meaning or benefit. Think about it. How much time do you spend on social media? Or how about sitting in front of a computer screen playing video games. A TV watching endless hours of reality show. I know I am guilty of at least a couple of these and so many other ways that I have wasted God’s precious gift of time.
The problem is that none of us have an unlimited amount. In my case I have been doubly blessed. Fifteen years ago, I was told I had very little time to live. Advanced prostate cancer was going to end my time on this earth quickly. But through God’s grace and his gift of time I not only have survived but have come to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior! He had given me time! But the question was and is what I should be doing with this gift. I have really struggled with this! But I have found a quote that opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking,
“Each day we should live as if we knew that this would be our last day on this earth. If we knew that Christ would come tomorrow, would we not crowd into today all the kind words, all the unselfish deeds, that we could? We should be patient and gentle, and intensely in earnest, doing all in our power to win souls to Christ.” Ellen G. White
If I woke up this morning and knew that this was my last day on this earth, what would I fill my day with? Maybe this is how I should think of God’s gift of time! Not as an unending supply but as this day, this moment being the last one I have and use it to His glory. James in his epistle says it this way,
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4: 13-15
If we are living each day as our last and seeking the will of God in that day, I don’t think there is a chance of wasting the precious gift of time each of us has been given.
Back on that jobsite so many years ago my crew worked hard, and we did get back on schedule through the unexpected gift of time. Today each of us can think we have an unlimited supply of seconds, minutes, hours, days or even years but the truth is in the center of the verse I just shared,
“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” James 4:14
The clock is ticking! Are you behind or on God’s schedule today?
Blessings
John
9/30/2021
