by Tom
Wacaster
While doing
mission work in South Africa, we had opportunity to make a trip to Zimbabwe.
One thing that impressed me about the "local" citizens (by local, we
mean those who still lived in remote areas of the country), was the absence of
any concern about time and/or schedules. You might tell them that
worship would be at 9:00 in the morning, but that did not mean anything to them.
Oh, they would do their best to abide by the "white man's" time
frame, but most of them did not own a watch, taking the events of the day as
they got to them. But somehow the absence of watches did not stand in the
way of their arrival on time. In fact, for the most part, the brethren would
get there before we missionaries, and would be waiting for you when you arrived.
I asked brother Mitchell, local missionary in Mutare, if their lack of concern
for hourly appointments ever presented any problems. He assured me that
the bushmen probably got more done in a day's time without their
watches, than you and I got done with our
watches. Why was that the case? It was a matter of proper
management of time. The local bushman realized that there was only a
limited amount of time between sunrise and sunset, and he would use it wisely
and prudently as the day progressed. The following recently came to me
via the internet. "Imagine there is a bank that credits your account
each morning with 86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day.
Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the
day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!!!! Each of us has
such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400
seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed
to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the
day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no
going back. There is no drawing against the 'tomorrow.' You must live in the
present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in
health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today."
That is precisely what those native Zimbabweans did. They made the most
of today. Another has made this observation:
"To
realize the value of ONE YEAR,
ask a
student who failed a grade.
To realize
the value of ONE MONTH,
ask a mother
who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize
the value of ONE WEEK,
ask the
editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize
the value of ONE HOUR,
ask the
lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize
the value of ONE MINUTE,
ask a person
who missed the train.
To realize
the value of ONE-SECOND,
ask a person
who just avoided an accident.
To realize
the value of ONE MILLISECOND,
ask the
person who won a silver medal in the Olympics."
The Psalmist
writer put it this way: "So teach us to number our days, That we
might get us a heart of wisdom" (Psalms 90:12). If a man in some
remote corner of the world can "number his day" without the aid of a
watch, or a calendar, so as to make the most of every moment, why is it that
you and I, with the assistance of precise clocks, fail to get done what needs
to be done? Perhaps the problem lies not in the awareness of time
increments, with its hours and minutes, but in how we use that which has been given
to us.