Serving Time

Serving Time

Time does not always run at the same speed. Sometimes time runs fast. Sometimes slow. Time runs faster when we are watching our favorite television show. When we go to the high school commencement for our next door neighbor’s boy it runs slower. When we are having fun, time runs fast. When we are in pain and agony, it runs slow. Time is variable or at least our perception of time is variable.

I meet many hurried and harried professionals. They do not have enough time in their life. But there are exceptions.

Some people have time. Plenty of time. Too much time. The quadraplegic in the hospital has time. Plenty of time. Agonizing time.

I discussed time with the Emerald Prince. Now as most of you know the Emerald Prince retired to the Emerald Palace where he is a guest of the Great State of Ozarklandia. The Emerald Prince has a number of acquaintances who have time on their hands. His good friend and room mate evidently has two life times of time but is expected to survive only the first of his two consecutive sentences.

So time some times takes on a different meaning. Think about spending the rest of your life behind bars. You will have no more children. No more time before the Christmas tree. No more being held in the arms of the person that you love and who loves you. Your food will be always mundane. Will you be motivated by being one of the best workers in the prison laundry that they have ever seen. When your parents die, you will not be able to attend the funeral. When your daughter gets married, you will not be there to give her away (or to be the mother of the bride if you are a mother serving time). You are not there to help your children if they get picked on in school or to help them with their homework or see them graduate.

You are like a ghost. Separated from society, but always looking and still feeling the pain. Pain that you have caused to others and pain that you receive in return.

Time goes slow when you are in pain.

So I asked the Emerald Prince about time. His answer was: “I have plenty of time but not lots of opportunity.”

Among the prisoners there are two types. There are those who can expect to get out some day and those who do not expect to ever get out. One has a hope and an expectation. The other does not. Hope makes all the difference. One has everything to gain by good conduct. The other has nothing to loose by bad conduct.

So, you see, not everybody sees time the same way.

Now I have a question. Is a prayer offered to God in prison as good as a prayer offered to God outside of prison? Will God listen to a prisoner’s prayers? I believe the answer is yes. It is the same. God does not make distinctions between prisoners and non-prisoners. He looks on the repentant heart no matter where that heart is located.

And prisoners. Many godly people have experience prisons. Others finally wake up in prison after years of drug or alcohol induced dementia. Sometime people are even imprisoned for their faith. Sometimes it is for other reasons.

Joseph was a prisoner for about 16 years before he became second to the Pharoah. I wonder how many times he prayed to get out of prison as he saw his life ebbing away one sand at a time just like an hour glass with the sands running out.

Peter, Paul and John all lived in prison for considerable time.

John the Baptist was put into prison and even received capital punishment during the life of Jesus.

Christians of all ages and times have experienced prison.

John Bunyan who wrote Pilgrims Progress was thrown into prison.

Watchman Nee was sent to prison by the Communists.

The litany of Christian prisoners is a long one. That why Jesus said: If you have visited them you have visited me."

We complain about how little time we have. But some people have plenty of time. Time that seems to go on a long, long time.

The prisoners have a saying for it. When they are serving time when a relative dies or a spouse gets tired of waiting for them and marries another, it is called “hard time.” Because they are inside and helpless.

But all time eventually runs out. Good times, even hard times. But behind time is God. And I believe His hands are stretched out to embrace us and to welcome us home. Time will not always be our master but someday I believe it will serve us as we enter into the true and eternal household of God. There time will bow the knee to eternity.

And time will serve us instead of us serving time.