Daily Affirmations - Day 1- Redeeming the Time: Wise, Not Unwise

This week's Theme: Redeeming the Time

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Day 1: Wise, not unwise

In a moment of greatly overestimated strength, endurance, and "discretionary time," I undertook the ambitious plan of joining a community garden. It wasn't optimal timing, given everything else— planned and unplanned— that was already "on the docket." Not to mention I had a small garden at home I was already trying to manage!

By mid growing season, I still hadn't visited my tiny plot, and eventually a polite but pointed email suggested that if I no longer wanted it, I could relinquish it so someone else could use it. I jumped at this "out", responding that I would not be able to come for a few more weeks, and offering to donate it to someone else.

"Well that's that!" I thought to myself, quite relieved that I had one less "obligation" to fulfill. Instead, I got another email that said, "Okay, see you in a few weeks!" Well! So much for an "out!"

As things slowly began to settle, however, I was happy that I still had my little spot in the community garden. Sadly, though, I was not able to plant the garden I had originally planned and designed.

The "sow window" had passed for many of my seeds, and I had to adjust my garden plan to accommodate plants that could thrive later in the growing season. Fortunately, I still had time to plant a few favorites, but the young tender plants in my section seemed tiny and fragile next to thriving plots filled with mature vegetables, flowers, and herbs.

How like life my little garden is! How quickly seasons pass, and the opportunity to "sow" is gone!

Time management seems increasingly challenging in our hurried, harried, and oh-so-demanding world. We constantly peer "Through the Looking Glass" of modern precedents, preferences, and priorities, and like Alice, wonder, and try to protest the distortions:

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the [Red] Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" (Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, 1871).

Yet above the prevailing Red-Queen-logic with its strange rules and structures, Scripture still speaks its timeless message:

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is (Ephesians 5:15-17).

And so I am reminded to make the most of my time, in my garden, and in life, trusting God's plan for "the work of my hands;" remembering His blessing over the lives of His people:

“Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters. Water will flow from their buckets; their seed will have abundant water…” (Numbers 24:6-7).