Thyme

In the spring, our family started studying Shakespeare together (for anyone interested, I highly recommend Ken Ludwig’s “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare“). The first lines we have begun memorizing are from A Midsummer Night’s Dream…”I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows.” Every time we recite it together I’m struck by the idea of “wild thyme blowing”. Shakespeare truly had such a way with words. I think about actual “time” in this world and how bound it is…only twenty-four hours, only seven days in a week, only fifty-two weeks in a year.  There will never be more and never less.  And yet, thyme growing in the wild is unfettered, undisturbed by boundaries, free to just grow and flourish and spread. It blows gently as its stems move closer to heaven and receives even more freedom to enjoy the sunshine, the rain and the breezes.

I want my time to be more like that thyme. God’s boundaries are beautiful, the psalmist makes clear they have fallen in pleasant places. I’m not saying to throw the boundary of time out the window! Instead, I want my time to be spent well. I don’t want to be so chained to the clock that I can’t stop to rock my fussy baby or comfort a child who was just randomly injured by a chip clip (both happened in our home today!). I don’t want to choke time so tightly that there isn’t room to have sweet new friends over for several hours on a Sunday evening just to hang out and fellowship and feed one another’s souls. I don’t want my Google calendar to have every color coded category staring me in the face each day, so much so that I am unavailable for gospel needs, unable to stop and show compassion and mercy to someone who is hurting. I don’t want my days to feel so long that I am not able to grow and flourish and spread because there doesn’t even seem to be enough time to feast on God’s Word daily and converse with Him in prayer.  If I am not careful, the boundary of time can all too easily become an evil snare, a greater opportunity for sin and a barrier that blocks the sunshine, the rain and the enjoyment of those beautiful and refreshing breezes.

Friends, let’s be careful with our hours, with our weeks, with our years. We know time is fleeting and tomorrow is not promised. God’s Word makes both truths clear (Psalm 39:4 and James 4:14). Busyness does not equal godliness. Let your time blow a little…let it blow wild and free and see if God doesn’t do something marvelous as you yield your hours to Him.