Redeeming the Time Change

Yesterday was time-change Sunday. Maybe it’s my advancing age, but I seem to like changes in time less, each time they happen. Today I will fly west and change time zones, only to fly back on Wednesday and change time zones again. Twice I have flown all the way around the world – once in three weeks, once in two weeks – and both times it took my body several weeks to catch up. Whatever the time zone or time frame in which we find ourselves, the Bible twice encourages us to be “redeeming the time” (Eph. 5:15-16; Col. 4:5). The word “redeem” means to make the most of every opportunity, to buy up those moments which others seem to throw away; steadily improving every present moment. Some of us remember “redeeming” savings stamps in years gone by. We traded in something of value (stamps that we carefully collected and attempted, usually without success, to be licked into in a stamp book. The worst tasting glue in history was used on the back of those stamps as I remember, and they never stuck. That’s why we used rubber bands around the books to hold the stamps in place). We took our stamp books to a Redemption Center and traded them in for something of greater value. The Bible encourages us to trade-in our time for a more valuable use of time, for spiritual time management. So, whatever the time zone, whatever the time change, while we’ve still got time on our minds, let’s be in the time redeeming business.

Join me in praying for the following global concerns:
• Twelve years ago this Wednesday, the wall that had been separating East and West Germany fell. East Germans experienced freedom for the first time in many years. Pray for those who are still offering the East Germans the free gift of salvation.
• Pray for University of British Columbia Campus Minister and Chaplain, Rich Carruthers’ whose heart surgery has been moved to Monday, Nov. 7. He will have a double heart valve replacement.
• Pray for those who are suffering from the floods in Northern Thailand and for those who minister among them.