Monday Morning Devotion-July 11, 2022
As Time Goes By
I waited patiently for the Lord to help me and he turned to me and heard my cry...He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40: 1, 3
“Where does the time go?” Ever ask that question in perhaps a frustrated manner?
Maybe you had a very full agenda and were rushing around all day trying to get everything done, Now it was quitting time and you still had a lot that you wanted or needed to do staring at you. Unfinished business. Guess what? I bet all those tasks will be right there waiting on you tomorrow. That’s the thing about time. It keeps on going by, but thanks to the Good Lord, there is more where that came from.
Sometimes you have a plan that doesn’t call for much waiting, but still you have to wait.
It’s like in that video with Country singer Brad Paisley and TV star Andy Griffith , which is really cool called “Waitin’ on a woman:” It goes like this”
Sittin’ on a bench at West Town Mall
He sat down in his overalls and asked me
You waitin’ on a woman?
He said, son, since nineteen-fifty-two
I’ve been waitin’ on a woman
Hmm! I could elaborate on that thought but I won’t since Susette will be editing this Devotion and I don’t want it to end up in the slush pile. :) Actually I’ve only been waiting on her since 2002.
Let me digress for a moment and sort of get off the subject to talk about the Late Andy Griffith His show on TV with Barney, Opie, Aunt Bea, Gomer and Goober was always one of my favorites. But Andy caught my attention before that show ever came on with a record called “What it Was Was Football.”
It’s kinda OK to do this here because on the record Andy had all the good intentions because he was headed to a religious gathering before he got sidetracked and unwittingly had to take a detour. Taken from my eBook on Amazon Monday Morning Devotions II:
It was the story of a country bumpkin who went to the city to attend a religious tent service and got caught up in a crowd headed to a football game. He had never heard of football, much less been to a game. He got rushed along with the crowd and before he got shed of them they parted, and he could see where he was. So, he decided to sit down and see "What it was that was going to happen." He was intrigued because what he saw was a "pretty little cow pasture" that someone had drawed white lines acrost it and drove "post(es) in it" and he saw "four or five convicts running up and down and blowing whistles." I still laugh about that one.
Then along came the Andy Griffith show which always started with Andy and his boy Opie (Ron Howard) walking along with fishing poles and the familiar song that was whistled but you didn’t hear the words. The words to that opening stanza actually went like this:
Well now take down your fishin’ pole
And meet me at the fishin’hole
We may not get a bite all day
But don’t you rush away
What a great place to rest your bones
And mighty fine for skippin’ stones
You’ll feel fresh as a lemonade,
A settin’ in the shade
If there is ever a place and activity where it doesn’t seem like time goes by it would probably have to be when you’re fishing. I haven’t been fishing since I was about Opie’s age but as I recalled that’s about the most unhurried activity you could be involved in.
The thing about time going by is it leaves with it lots of memories. Clinging to and fondly remembering the good times brightens your day.
One of my favorite all time movies is Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The song that stands out in the movie is called: “As Time Goes By:”
You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.
Do you remember your first kiss? As time goes by and your life is filled with many memorable occasions and events, your first kiss is probably one thing you’ll remember.
I remember the first kiss the Lovely Susette and I shared (hopefully she won’t edit this out).
On our first time together as we were getting ready to part, I asked her (being the gentleman that I am :)) if I could give her a kiss. She replied, since it was the first time together- “a little one.” When the kiss was over she said: “That wasn’t a little kiss.” It wasn’t said in a scolding way.
As time goes by certain memories are forgotten and then something will happen that reminds us of a special memory. Many of mine come for having been raised in the church. A lot of my early activities centered around school, church and family activities.
I remembered as a youth in church we used to have sword drills. These occurred in what we called BTU (Baptist Training Union). All the kids would spread out in a circle holding their Bibles with one hand on top and one on the bottom. The leader would call out a verse of scripture and each kid would quickly open their Bibles and frantically search for the scripture. The first one to find it would step forward and read it. That’s pretty much how I learned the books of the Bible and what order they were in so to this day I can easily find a scripture without having to flip through the pages to find the book it’s in or go to the table of contents first.
Then there was the time I was cutting up on my bicycle and fell on the concrete fracturing my arm, naturally it would be my right arm. Consequently because of the large cast on it I had to try to learn how to write left-handed and worse still couldn’t throw a baseball, because of the large cast on my arm, for several months.
So, time passes by taking with it lots of things but leaving many beautiful memories to be enjoyed over and over.
Prayer: Thank you Lord for the gift of time! Amen!