The electric clock hands sweep silently through the wintry night. Then the jarring buzz—fivethirty a.m.—time to get up again. I take it for granted every morning. Sure, the electricity may go off, but rarely. There’s always the old faithful wind-up alarm clock in case of emergencies.
If you stayed up to watch the old year out and the new one in, you probably counted down the last minutes and seconds of the old year—the faithful clock let you know exactly when.
Clocks and other time indicators adorn our walls, and are found in cars, cell phones, computers! Banks all around inform us of the time and temperature. Most people carry timepieces to make sure they aren’t caught not knowing the exact time of day.
It was not always so. Let’s go back into the dim mists of ancient history and see the development of this “fact of life” we so often take for granted.
Man’s most ancient timepiece, of course, was the God-given sun. He knew, for example, that when the sun was “overhead” that the middle of his working day had come. On cloudy days he had to guess. Ancient Egyptians sometimes used a most unusual and beautiful timepiece, a certain species of wild rose. This variety always began to unfold its blossom at sunrise and at exactly midday it always drooped. Early in history, man devised the sundial, probably the most ancient of man-made timepieces. At night and in cloudy weather man still had to guess.
Several hundreds years before Christ, the Greeks invented the water clock. It worked on the same principle as the hourglass. It served as the most up-to-date kind of clock until well into the Middle Ages. In the water clock, water trickled at an even rate into a large bason with hour markings on the sides. A very large water clock could mark small fractions of the hour—even minutes.
Clocks using weights and pendulums were common by 1700. Wind-up clocks have existed now for several hundred years, perfected by the Swiss.
In the twentieth century electric clocks and digital clocks became popular. Electric clocks make use of the alternating current of electricity. This current vibrates at an even rate of sixty times per minute. A good electric clock keeps extremely accurate time.
Obviously man has always been on a quest for time or time telling. But only in recent years and in so-called well-developed countries has time become a mania.
We’re (and that includes me) so caught up with having to know what time it is so we don’t miss the next appointment. Even during the times I read the Bible and worship God, I find myself thinking, “Now I only have 15 minutes to meditate because I have to be off to work at seven-thirty.” Or “I have to finish Bible reading and prayer by 10:30 so I can feel like getting up by 6:00.”
And on and on it goes. I really have to wonder, “Are all these clocks my servants, helping me live for Jesus Christ? Or am I their slave, trying to squeeze in time for God?” Literally, of course, it’s not the fault of the poor timepieces—they’re only machines. Rather it’s that preoccupation with time and a hurried schedule.
We do well to apply the Bible command not to “grow weary in well doing” to our use of time. Am I so weary in the rush of doing “things” that are, in themselves, all right, that I have no time for the most important right things—seeking the Lord in the quiet of unhurried devotion?
Am I guilty of frantically running “to and fro” as Daniel predicted, a servant of time and schedule and other things that crowd God out?
No doubt 2010 is doomed to be another year of people running “to and fro” even worse than past years. What shall we do with the fleeting time God has given us this year?
The Bible declares, “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.” This implies the wise use of time. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Yes, there’s a time for our work, our appointments, or whatever. But there’s also a time to be alone with God, to get right with Him, and to serve Him with our whole heart. That time must get top priority regardless of what the clock says.
–Roger Berry