on God's time

Written for the church newsletter.

            The other morning I heard a story about a Swedish guy named Fredrik Colting who has invented a watch called the Tikker.  He bills it as a “happiness watch,” but this is happiness with a morbid twist.  Colting’s watch counts down the number of years, hours, days, and minutes until the wearer’s expected demise.

            Colting’s intent is to refocus wearers’ attention upon the important things in life.  Don’t sweat the small stuff; after all, you want to use your remaining time to best advantage.

            Weird as the concept might be, he does have a point.  Unfortunately, Colting’s philosophy is hung up on notions of a certainty in a world that is anything but.  We can exercise and eat healthily, monitor our cholesterol and get plenty of rest.  All these things are good things.  They often will lengthen our lives.  We cannot, however, plan for accidents and environmental factors, hereditary surprises and human error.   Like the rich fool in Luke 12, we might find ourselves storing treasure for the future at the expense of the present—on the very day our lives are demanded of us.  After all, our Tikker watch says we still have 30 years.

            We all live with expectations.  My grandfather once commented that he wanted to live to 80 and then he was done.  Didn’t see much reason to hang around beyond that.  His opinion began to change as he inched closer to the start of his eighth decade.  He turned 85 this fall.  He seems cool with still being here. 

Most of us could probably tell similar stories of friends or relatives, or of our own hopes for the way our lives will turn out.  Expectations are good when they prompt us to make good decisions and live wisely.  Part of wise living, though, involves realizing that our expectations are not equivalent to scientific precision.

            All of us might do best to wear don metaphorical Tikker watches with three words on the display: “on God’s time.”  We are called to live our days as best we can, not because we know we’ve only got a decade or a month or a century left to go, but because our lives are a gift from God regardless of length.  Each day is important.  Each day is a gift.  We have been granted the freedom to live fully, secure in our place in God’s larger plan whatever the number of our years.

            “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”—Psalm 118:24.

            Amen!