DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

I glanced up at the clock. Six o’clock. I still had time to read another chapter. It was Sunday evening and I was getting ready to go to the Fellowship Room for the evening service, led by Ken Crowe. Suddenly, I realized that I was an hour older than I thought I was! I had been looking at the only clock that I hadn’t adjusted to Daylight Savings Time! I quickly grabbed my book and rushed down the hall and barged into the meeting only a half-hour late! Of course nobody noticed as I sat down at the only available table, front and center!

Daylight Savings Time (DST) is no friend of mine. It does not save any of my time. It just brings confusion, conflict, and condemnation. How can losing an hour of sleep save anything!

The following Tuesday I was at my desk making serious progress on my week’s activities. I looked up at the clock which registered 10:45. I had plenty of time to make my 11:30 appointment. As I started to take a break, I looked down at my watch and was shocked – 11:45! That stupid clock struck again! (I need to write my congressman about this villain called “Daylight Savings Time” that they have imposed on us patriotic Americans for the past umpteen years.) I quickly called to apologize to the man with whom I was supposed to meet. He said that he had left a message the previous day that something had come up and he couldn’t make the appointment. DST had afflicted me with cloudy thinking so that I hadn’t even checked my messages that morning. Then, of all things, he suggested that I ought to change the time on that clock! Well, it is now been changed, thank you!

But my body had not changed its clock. The next morning I woke up at my regular time around 6:00 a.m. A problem quickly arose because the clocks revealed that it was actually 7:00 a.m. I was supposed to be at the Downtown Coffee Club at 7:00! I got into my clothes and got to the Downtown Marina at 7:13. However, I had forgotten that just the previous week the guys agreed to meet at 7:30 instead of 7:00! Fog had clouded my thinking again, all due to DST – Deprived Sleep Trauma!

When His brothers exhorted Jesus to go to Jerusalem to demonstrate His works, He said, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always ready” (Jn. 7:6). Jesus knew when His time would come to go to the Father. But we don’t know when our time will come. We all assume that we will be here a while longer. But what happens if we are an hour older than we thought we were and our time has come? Are you ready?

You can be. And you should be. Paul wrote, “If we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s (Ro. 14:8). The Lord Who saved us, Who never leaves us nor forsakes us, Who guides use in this life (Ps. 48:14), Who walks with us when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23:4), is the One Who says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Ps. 116:15).

God loves you. Sometimes time slips by us and we don’t know where it went. Sometimes it is taken away from us as Daylight Savings Time (DST) steals an hour from us in March. But, as Jesus taught, our time is always ready. It is in God’s hands, not ours. So, if the DST (Divine Symphony Tempo) arrives before you expect it, you won’t be late for any appointment. You will be right on time!