Ann Voskamp begins Chapter 4 (“A Sanctuary of Time”) of One Thousand Gifts with the following quote from J. R. R. Tolkien:
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Indeed, Ann admits that she craves more time to manage just her current life. She comments that such a full life in reality can seem quite empty. As Ann astutely notes, the busyness of our lives may leave little room for the source of our lives. Although God gives us the gift of time, do we have time for God? And if anyone should have time for God, Ann asks, isn’t it Christians?
We tend to live our days at a frenetic pace. But hurry, as Mark Buchanan states in The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Your Sabbath (Nashville: Nelson, 2007), does not create more available time:
“Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing. . . . Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.”
“Be still and know that I am God.”- Psalm 46:10
