opportunities

It was back and forward to the school again today. Two assemblies and the lunch-time SU group.

On one of my trips along to the school I met a lady in the street, whom I know a little bit. She was surprised to find I went to the school at all, and astonished that I was there so often.

How do you find the time for that? she asked.

The answer, of course, has more to do with my making the time. I see this as a 'right-up-there' priority. Building genuine bridges into the coming generations. Engaging with tomorrow's world today.

The Forth Rail Bridge under construction. It took a lot of time, a lot of steel, and an awful lot of nuts and bolts!

'Time' is a precious resource, which we have to invest in this way. There simply are no short-cuts we can take.

But time is a finite resource. For all of us.

24 hours every day. We all get the same. 7 days a week. No one gets the bonus of an extra day thrown in.

And all of those hours which build into days, which build into weeks, which build into months and years - however many years that all amounts to in the end, the time that we're allotted here is always really short. A finite number of years.

We simply can't do everything: however much we'd like to.

That means making choices as to how our time is spent.

They need to be wise choices.

The Head at the school was on about that today. Wisdom is the value for the month. One of the 'values' the Scottish Government is keen to see established through our schools (the others are 'integrity', 'justice', and 'compassion' - so the Head was saying).

Wisdom is making wise choices, he said.

He told a simple story of three pans of boiling water. Into one there was placed a carrot - strong and hard. Into one was placed an egg - fragile and soft. Into one was placed a handful of coffee beans.

What happened when the water had been boiling for a while? The carrot had become all soft. The egg had become all hard. The coffee beans, by contrast, had actually changed the water.

If the boiling water's a picture for us of the tough and troublesome times that life will bring - when the going gets tough and the heat's turned up - how will we choose to react to adversity's heat?

Will we let it weaken us and leave us limp and lame? Will we let it breed in us a hardness and resentment? Or will we be the sort of folk who in and through adversity go out and change the world?

Wisdom is making wise choices.

We choose how to use our time. We choose how much sleep we will take. We choose to set aside one whole day in the week as a day for the worship of God.

And we choose through each day how our time is best to be spent.

How do we go about making these choices?

Well, prayerfully, for a start. What is it, Lord, that you want me to be doing with my time? Where and to what and to whom are you directing my path?

But prayer's not magic. There's a need to be thinking things through. With the Lord, of course: but thinking things through.

Strategic, long-term planning. What do we hope to accomplish? And how are those aims to be furthered? And what will that mean in the detail of this day?

So I'm keeping my eyes and ears open. Where are the doors of opportunity? Where do my gifts and strengths lie? Where am I seeing the footprints of God on the move?

At the moment, for sure, there's a wide open door in the school. It would surely be foolish to turn a blind eye to the access afforded me there.

We had 20 or more along once again at the Scripture Union group today. A crowd of really eager, energetic, open-minded individuals, at a stage and time of life when they're like sponges in the way they'll soak things up.

And the Head seems keen that I should get the chance to work through the SU session I suggested on the P7's move towards the High School. "It's your move!"

When there are so many fruitful opportunities along there at the school, I want to seize them all.

I want to make wise choices in the way I use my time. We don't have all that long in life.