Using Our Time

“Time is how you spend your love.” Zadie Smith

I wonder why I have never thought of love in just this way. It strikes me as being not only true but also an easy way to test whether or not I am really following the new commandment from John 13:34-35. “Let me give you a new commandment: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another This is how everyone will recognize that your are my disciples - when they see the love you have for each other.”

It is easy to give lip service to the idea of this kind of love but far harder to actually put it into practice. We all have excuses as to why we can’t. We are too busy, too old, too poor. The excuses go on and on. But what is the most precious commodity that we all have? Isn’t it time? Once a day, an hour, or even a minute has passed, we can never recapture it. Unlike material things we can’t hoard it like the Rich Fool [Luke 12:13-21] or can we invest it in such a way that it will accrue interest and multiply.

If we love our families, we give them our time. If we love our work, we willingly give it 110% of our time. Some people might spend most of their days during the summer tending the flower beds, while others are on the golf course any chance they get. We all are different and choose to spend any available time in different ways. But have you ever stopped to consider just what the way you choose to spend your time is saying about how you love, not just those near to you but the 'other' as well?

Whenever we give our time to another, be it face-to-face over a cup of coffee or long distance via email or text, it is love being expressed. Schlepping clothes at a clothing depot or chopping onions in a soup kitchen, is love being expressed. Taking time to read a story to a toddler or to play fish with an 8 year old, is love. Sending letters to your MPP to give your input on the minimum wage, health care, immigration or education is love speaking to the needs in society. Attending demonstrations and sit-ins, lobbying corporate concerns and boycotting products, all show love, love for the environment and love for the underdog.

So I’m challenging you at the end of each day to about think those opportunities you took to show love that day, as well as those you missed, those opportunities to love others AND yourself that are now gone forever. Then vow to yourself to do better tomorrow!

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