The Clock On The Altar

I dreamed a strange dream. I found myself in the church sanctuary. As I walked down the aisle, I noticed something different. The cross and the Bible and the candles had been removed from the Altar, and in their place stood a huge clock.

My first thoughts were, What’s a clock doing on the Altar? And who put it there?

Then a Heavenly voice replied, “I put it there. And that clock is just perfect where it is.”

Too shocked to speak, I sat down in the front pew and thought about what God had said. Come to think of it, God is right. We are a time-conscious people; we are a community of clock watchers. And we come this close to worshipping time. But a clock on the altar? Perhaps it is appropriate. We talk a lot about time. “Time marches on.” “Time and tide wait for no man.” “My, how time flies.” “We’re out of time.” “Time is money.” “We never seem to have enough time.” “It’s about time.” “What time is it?” Time is a gift from God! Time is God’s gift to you and me. We are born, we live for short while and we die. God gives us time, moment by moment.

Time is a valuable gift. Each of us is given 24 hours every day – 1,440 minutes of time. God deposits all those minutes in our account every new day. But, at midnight of each day, our account is emptied and we get a fresh supply of minutes deposited to our account. Therefore, we can’t hoard up time. We can’t save our minutes for a rainy day. We can’t use today’s minutes tomorrow.

Since we don’t have an unlimited supply of time, and since we never know just when our supply will run out, let’s use every moment wisely and well. Let’s be more careful about how we spend our valuable time.

Time guards the door to the past. God has locked the door to our past and asked Father Time to guard that door so that we cannot enter it. We can recall the past. We can learn from the past. We can repress the past. We can glorify the past. We cannot go back to the past. We cannot change our past! This moment, when it’s gone, can never be recovered or re-lived. So, every minute is valuable. Let’s not waste a single moment.

Time guards the door to the future. We cannot enter the future until God opens that door. We can stand at the door to our future. We don’t know what to expect; we’re afraid of what might happen. We worry about what could happen. That’s why we try to live in the past or try to hold on to the present.

God is the Creator of time. He is God of our past, God of our present and God of our future. God always wants what’s best for all His children; that’s why we can trust God to guide us safely through the New Year, to provide us with all we actually need, to surround us with His love and care, and to give us the strength to meet whatever might com.

A clock on the altar reminds us that we are to worship and serve the God who created time and not the clock that tells us the time.

— Dr. Don Kuehle is a retired United Methodist minister who lives in Jackson. Opinions are those of the author.