Children say, “My parents are so busy. When I wake up in the morning, they have already left to their office, when I fall asleep at night, they haven’t come back home. I have everything, but I don’t have their time. They said that they have to do it for me. But, please. I have enough. I don’t need anything else, just their care, their love, their time.”
Husbands say, “My wife changed. At the beginning of our marriage, she was so lovely, she cooked, she prepared the bathroom, etc. But now? She is so busy with her talkative friends: spending the whole day gossiping. She has no more time for me.”
Others say, “My friends have no time for me. They will spare their time if only I made appointment with them 1 week before. They are so busy with themselves.”
It seems to be that 24 hours a day is much less than what it should. God should add more hours a day, should He not? But why don’t we sit down and think how the people some decades ago lived. How could they manage their time?
Mr A lived in the 17th century. He was a businessman and lived in Hamburg. Once he had to make a deal in Munich. Assume that at that time most people traveled not by cars, trains or aeroplanes, but horses. The journey Hamburg-Munich took 6 days by horse, then in Munich because of some difficulties he needed to spend another 2 days and as soon as he finished the deal he immediately went back home, another 6 days were needed, so in total for making a deal Hamburg-Munich, people of old needed 14 days. But how long the modern people need? Not more than 2 hours. We can send them through email, they sign the deal and fax back to us. Very fast. Logically, if we are businessmen in 21th century and we are making a deal Hamburg-Munich, we save 13 days 22 hours each contract, can you imagine how many days we can save if every weekday we make 10 contracts? You count it by yourself. Do people have arguments to say that they have no time? Do you think people of old had more hours a day than us so that they could manage it? Of course not, so why in this very fast civilization, people have less time? We should have more than them, should we not?
If you are a housewife, how many minutes to defrost the freezing meat by microwave? Count it 15 minutes. What about at our grandma’s time? She needed to boil the water, put the meat inside, waited for 2 hours. Another example: Mrs A, who lived in 17th century, got salary from his husband. She had planned to buy some vegetables in the market, shoes in the shoe market, and fish in the fish market. So in the morning, she went to local market bought some vegetables, and then went to fish market, bought some fishes, finally in the noonday she could go to shoe market and bought shoes. Why she had to do that? Because at that time there were no one stop shop like in our time. There were no Carrefour, Wal-Mart, REAL, etc. How many hours she needed to do them all? Count it 6 hours, but how about us nowadays? We could just go to Wall-mart and buy everything there within 1 hour. Imagine if this case happens all days… how many hours we, modern people, could save than people of old? But where is the time? It seems to me that we are busier than before. Everybody says, “I don’t have time.”
We are like mouse in the wheel. It seems to us that we are moving forward, but if we are honest to ourselves. We are going nowhere. The world will continue running normally, even if we cease to work, cease to live. One generation passes away and another generation comes, but the earth abide forever (Ecclesiastes 1:4).
Can you answer that? It seems to me that somebody always shouts at our back “Go. Go. Go. Don’t stop, keep moving. You are not there yet. Forget about your wife, your children, your family. Work! Work! Work!” If only we can sit down and think. Why should we go and go and go without end but forget people we love. We are so absorbed by it. Don’t you see that everything is chasing after the wind? Vanity of vanities? Think about it. Jesus loves you
Alvin Su (AS)
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