Time x19

Last night I drove home to the north side from the valley. A typical route of about 30 minutes. Last night was a little different. I caught every red light. No joke. Even if it was a moment’s pause, I stopped at 19 out of 19 lights. That must be a record.

The other unusual bit of my drive was the fact that I had no background noise. Typically I listen to a book on tape, but they were all in the boot and out of reach. The radio at 10:13pm is less than exciting. But more than that I wasn’t in the mood to have external noise. There was enough going on in my head.

As I drove, all I could do was say hi to God. I wanted to pray and I think he wanted me to too. I mean, 19 out of 19 red lights. I can take a hint. So we chatted a bit but then the other worries, thoughts, plans, dreams, ponderings came to my head, and I’d be distracted out of conversation. Three stop lights later I realized the distraction and went back to God except I felt like I needed to say hi to him again. Strangely, I didn’t think I could just pick up the conversation where I had left off, partly because I had forgotten but partly because I didn’t exactly know what to say. Our time together over the past weeks has been sporadic at best and usually distracted.

Here I was though. Stopped at red lights. No other cars around. And me with time on my hands. And God wanted to know how I would use it. “How will you use the time, Sarah? My time,” said God. Yep, his time. Obviously: 19 out of 19 red stoplights. God gives me a lot: my health, my home, my means, my abilities, but I rarely think about how my time is also a gift. Time is not something for me just to manage and use wisely, but it’s a gift that I need to give thanks for and offer back to God. I try to be intentional about using my abilities for God’s work, but I have a long way to go to use time selflessly especially when it means spending time with him. Not just time serving him, but communicating with and reading about him. Time is the most precious thing I have right now. Where I spend time shows my priorities.

Like any struggle we have in life, we need to be broken to be built up again which takes time. Funny that, God wants to give me some time. So I guess a little reconstruction is about to take place. Right now, I’ll just take one stop light at a time and take in what God has to say at that intersection.