THE CHILDREN'S TIME-KEEPING

God set the sun in the heavens to rule the day and it is the greatest of His created blessings for us. Jesus said that it rises on the evil and on the good - in loving-kindness putting the evil persons first. The sun reminds us of the Lord being now in glory, having made purification of sins by His blood. He is there for all and it is with the eyes of faith that we see Him.

It is the sun that really governs our time-keeping although we have clocks and watches. Even the younger children will have seen a sundial showing the time getting later as the shadow moves down. A king of Israel once wanted a sign that God would bless him. The prophet Isaiah then asked him to choose whether the shadow should go down or go back on the sundial ten degrees.

No doubt the king, Hezekiah, had learned that it was easy to lose time and therefore said that it was a light thing for the shadow to go down. So he wisely asked for the shadow to go backward and thus gain time. God did this for him by a miracle. If the degrees were the same as in our geography books the time would have been forty minutes - just about the length of a gospel preaching!

Even if we have wasted time God's grace is still towards us in the glad tidings of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we are told to redeem, or buy, the time which means using it wisely because it is so valuable. Many years ago a queen of England would at the end of her life have given all her possessions for a moment of time. I suppose she felt that she had neglected Gods salvation. Do you prove that now is the well-accepted time and today is the day of salvation?

J.C.Evershed