Never enough Minutes in a day

​As we enter into one of the busiest times of the year for all of us, I am reminded of some words of a radio show of 1947 which produced the following:

About a Minute

A minute is very small, but it is very important.. There are 1,440 minutes in each day. The apparent smallness of them makes us foolish mortals that overlook them. Someone said beautifully: “Lost yesterday, between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each studded with sixty diamond minutes. No reward has been offered, for they can never be found.”

You and I each have two great gifts that go along with life: Energy and Time. We can not waste either one without great personal loss. We fool ourselves into believing that little things do not count. They are the only things that really do count. Sand grains stay the ocean's fury, and snowflakes overwhelmed Napoleon’s army before Moscow. A minute may be little, but it is large enough for the biggest people to live in. You can fill the water bucket, or bring in an armful of kindling for a tired mother-in a minute. Or can speak a tender love to a dear one, or give a word of sympathy to someone with a heavy heart—in a minute. You can look up from your meal and thank the cook for something so beautiful. You can tell your spouse how much you love them and how they light up your day—in a minute. You can learn something new –in a minute. You can read ten verses of the Bible in a minute. You can be ashamed of your sins, repent of them and forsake them in a minute. A noble resolve can be born in your heart– in a minute. A prayer sixty seconds long in the middle of a busy day will bring strength, and beauty into your soul. A stanza of a happy song can be sung in a minute, A phone call to inquire after someone who is sick takes but a minute. The use of the minutes makes our marks on us during life, and when it is all over we will need but a minute to die.

Let us not make our hearts numb with the devil’s opium of putting off great things till we “have enough time.” Minutes are long enough if we will only use and not abuse them.

(If we want to come first, we need to mind the minutes in our lives.)

From John Holland’s Scrap Book (Pastor: Little Brown Church of the Air)

As we end the Church Year and begin a new one. We start off with Advent– May we take a minute to make a difference in the lives around us and in our own lives. God in his infinite wisdom has given us endless possibilities to do with the minutes allotted to us.

Rev. Stephen W Barch