Time is Love--Luke 2:33-38

“There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Pahnuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then had been a widow for eighty-four years. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:33-38) NIV

Random Thoughts:

“Time is money” may be a truism of Wall Street but in God’s economy? I think time is love. Although Luke writes just a few sentences about Anna, his readers would have recognized in a way that we might not that her commitment to singleness in order to pray and fast at the temple for the rest of her life is an unconventional life path. 

Forgoing her culture’s expectations and pressure to remarry or to have children who can care for her in her old age, ensuring her future and securing her social status, she chooses to dedicate her life 24/7 to God. In Anna, it seems, we have a bit of a maverick who’s life choice tells us that our time and what we do with it is every bit as valuable a gift to God as giving materially or serving through more conventional means. Time is love. 

Question:

Is there an unconventional choice you are challenged to make that might better enable you to serve and love others or God? 

Journal Response:

I read an article yesterday about Gen X that finally explains the over-parenting disorder that seems so pandemic among us born between the years 1965 and 1981. There is, apparently, a reason we are perhaps the most overly-involved, overly-neurotic, overly-obsessive parents the world has yet seen. A reason we so meticulously schedule our 2-year old’s play dates. A reason we are every school administrator’s nightmare. A reason we are so determined to advocate for any and every need we perceive necessary for the pursuit of happiness in all-things-progeny. Unfortunately it is not because we are incredible. 

Alas, according to recent studies, the reason that Gen X parents are over-parenting the current generation of children is because Gen X was the most under-parented of any generation. We were a generation of latch key kids and the first to experience the trauma of a 50% divorce rate among our parents. We learned a hard lesson; we didn’t come first. Or sometimes even second. Or third. 

And so the pendulum swings. From under-parenting to over-parenting. It figures. 

It also explains a lot. Why, for example, I was willing to even consider breast-feeding when I was convinced it was the yuckiest idea in the world. Or why it took us 59 hours of straight research to decide which infant car seat was truly safe. 

It also explains why my husband and I said “no” 20 years ago to the American Dream. Wielding our loan-ladened college diplomas we chose a different career path. No McMansions, no duel income, no 80-hour work weeks. We became a one-and-an-eighth income family, (me writing articles from home and my husband pursuing a teaching career). We chose time with family over our culture’s pursuit of money and the happiness former generations told us it could buy. 

But I’m not waiving my counter-cultural pom-poms. At times I wonder how wise our choice really was. As colleges woo our oldest son with their $40,000+ per year price tags and his middle school siblings begin to tire of hearing “we can’t afford it,” in answer to every question, we find ourselves wondering if God is flashing a green light telling us it is time to make more “green”. 

And then we begin to calculate the cost: the relational value of meals spent together or the availability needed to attend countless IEP meetings, doctor appointments, therapy sessions or just the plain old comfort of honey tea and someone to nurse you for those inevitable sick days.

Yes, our family dinners at times resemble the food-fight-chaos of a Jackson Pollack rather than the ideal tranquility of a Normal Rockwell. And yes, my bed-side manner has been known to be less-than-Mother-Theresa. But for me there’s a final deal breaker. Over the years saying “no” to more money and “yes” to more time at home has given me something I’ve learned that I can’t get any other way. 

God.

Being alone each day is the only way I really connect with God, giving him the chance to straighten me out along with all my Gen X neuroses. And its during our time together each day that I can talk with him about all the things that matter to me--my family, my friends or the latest political snafu that’s driving me crazy. In short, He keeps me grounded. He keeps me sane.

I’m no Anna. I have no plans to take off to the nearest synagogue to pray day and night for the next 84 years. But I do want to give God my time and I want it to make a difference in the lives of my family. Time is love. At least in God’s economy.