Jackie Gleason, the famous comic of the 1960s and 1970s, used to begin his Saturday evening television program with the phrase, “And away we go!” It reminds me of the hecticness (is there such a word?) of our lives. Busy, busy, busy! There seems to be no easing down through life anymore. It’s always go, go, go! I talk to so many folks as pastor whose complaint is, “I don’t have time for anything these days!” And I whole-heartedly agree. It seems to be the same at the parsonage.
I remember when I was just a lad, and I thought that time surely did pass slowly. My next older brother Nelson, who passed away four years ago this past February, was over seven years older than me. I can distinctly remember when he was getting ready to graduate eighth grade at Bondecroft Elementary School. Back then, they made a big “to-do” about the eighth grade graduation. Graduates were expected to really “dress up” in the best suits, ties, dresses and formal wear for the graduation ceremony itself. So that has always been a fond remembrance for me, as by the time I got a little older, the powers-that-be had moved the seventh and eighth grades to town to the new middle school. So, our ”graduation”, if you could even call it that, was from the sixth grade. We didn’t even have a graduation ceremony, much less a big “to-do”.
Anyway, getting back to the story, I remember when Nelson was graduating from the eighth grade. I was just coming out of the first grade. And, yes, I do remember that, even though it has been many years ago. I remember thinking, “I’ll never get to eighth grade graduation. Of course, at that time, I never even thought about there not even being a graduation. It seemed so far away…so many years away. And then, next thing I knew, he was graduating from high school in the Class of 1970. I was coming out of fifth grade by then. And again, I’m thinking, “high school graduation is so far away”. Out of the six brothers, I was now the only one still in school. And I’d be there another seven years. Of course, little did I know, that six more years of college and grad school lay out there in the future, too.
Fast forward to today! Wow, time sure doesn’t poke along now, does it? It seems like only yesterday I was still in school, still at home with Mom and Dad, and still enjoying the innocence of youth. I look in the mirror, and sometimes I’m shocked! Who is that old guy? Where did the time go? How has time flown by so quickly?
The Bible advises us to use our time wisely because God knows that there are many things in life that can distract us from what truly matters. We shouldn’t waste our time so that we look back with regret – we don’t know what tomorrow holds, but as the old beloved hymn says, “I know who holds tomorrow!” The psalmist wrote in Psalm 31:15, “My times are in Your hands”. Our best course of action moving forward, be it moving fast or moving slow, is to remember that God’s got everything under control. And He definitely holds tomorrow.