So, we had free reading week at school a couple of weeks ago. It was supposed to be a week of sleeping, no rushing out every morning and hitting the bed at night like a sack of potatoes, a week of general lounging and catching up on movies and shows I had missed. Asides fun stuff, I also planned on catching up on a couple of papers I am running behind schedule on. I had sufficient time to do all these cos, you see, I had no other responsibility so it shoulda been a breeze. But alas…it appears some things are easier said than done, some things are said and never done. And at the end of reading week as I headed back home, the realization dawned on me – I had simply refused to be productive. The first couple of days, I kept pushing the papers to the next day. And towards the end of the week, my body was just so lazy that I didn’t care anymore. At each moment when I was in the actual act of procrastination, I considered binding and losing the spirits of laziness, even that, I was too lazy to do. I think the clinical name will be ‘Sloth’ to be sincere.
In other news, there is this verse of the Bible that I hear aaaaa lot but never understood. “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Psalm 90:12. I have heard that verse for as long as I can remember especially at those birthday parties I am forced to attend. Even with the explanations provided at those parties, I remained obtuse. Until now.
I came across a different version in the Bible one of my rockstar sisters gave me.This Bible is super amazing. In that Bible, the version of that verse reads “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom” NLT. Gbam!
And it came to me. The mistake I made with my reading week. The thing is, in all fairness, as human beings, we do not understand the concept of time, hence the ‘teach us…’ part. We can’t hold on to time, make it pause for a bit or even slow it down. Time flies, our days go by swiftly and it is only those paying close attention that will realise how brief or short our lives are. Here today, gone tomorrow. February has come to an end, were you able to achieve all your plans for the month? Or did you procrastinate and pushed things into the next day like I did? My reading week taught me something important – our days are short. That is why we need to understand brevity of life so that we can be wiser in how we spend time. This requires a concious decision to value and respect time. Sleep less, focus more on your vision/ministry/projects/plans etc., pray more, start giving now (don’t wait until you are a billionnaire), start showing more love now, eat more veggies now, call your parents more now, impact your generation now, TY-Bello someone now…the list is endless.
The bottom line is we need to show more respect for time, ‘…so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom’.
gatlinmay 