The following is a poem I wrote after some personal reflections about time. Click the video below for the spoken word or read the text version.
Relentless master or the host of opportunity?
Constant, relentless, never pausing.
The drumbeat of time moves both away from and towards as each moment passes.
Away from what has been and towards what will be. A future unknown, consuming time in the present.
A sprinkling of anxiety, fear and worry polluting what might be, interspersed with hope of what could be.
The past now gone but somehow present, impacting and occupying with its story.
Words spoken and not spoken, things done or not done. Still the past consumes and shapes the future.
Tick, tick, tick.
Sometimes silent, sometimes loud, sometimes ignored, the drum continues to beat.
Relentless master or the host of opportunity?
Seconds become minutes, days, weeks and months.
The years go by.
And with the years, hopes and dreams left where they were birthed.
Passed and gone, irreversibly. Or so it seems.
Who is this relentless master who dares to suffocate opportunity and hope?
Who is this who dares to consign the future to survival or hopelessness?
Or to offer a settlement of what must be.
Who is this masquerading as a giant, casting a shadow over the future?
This is no giant.
The smallest creatures cast long shadows when conditions favour.
No, the real giant is the one born for a time such as this.
Leave behind the noise, the turbulence and distress.
Do all things through him who strengthens.
And know He has plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
The years the locusts have eaten will be returned.
And with it, the fulfilment of who you were born to be.
Today is the end of yesterday, the beginning of tomorrow.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Embrace the past, be in the moment and delight that He makes known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.
Be still and know that He is God.
Gary Borland