Times Paces

When I was a babe and wept and slept,
Time crept;

When I was a boy and laughed and talked,
Time walked.

Then when the years saw me a man,
Time ran.

But as I older grew,
Time flew.

Soon, as I journey on,
I'll find time gone.

May Christ have saved my soul, by then,
Amen.

'Times Paces' by Henry Twells, adapted by Guy Pentreath

Labels

When you meet someone for the first time, what do you ask them? Probably pretty early on it’s ‘what do you do?’ Or, ‘do you have a family?’ Maybe ‘where do you live?’

They are reasonable questions. They help us find out about the newcomer. But often, without realizing it, we are forming a judgement of them based on what we learn of their job, their family background, the kind of house they live in; possibly by the clothes they are wearing.

There was an interesting experiment recently. Six photographers were asked to photograph the same man, wearing the same clothes- so there was no outer differentiator. One was told he was a life-saver, another that he was a fisherman. One was told he was a millionaire, another that he was a recovering alcoholic. One that he was a psychic, another that he was a former prisoner.

The six resulting photographs of the same man in the same clothes are entirely different:

The labels we give people do not actually determine who they are, only how we perceive them to be. Every one of us is different. No two people are the same. We all have a precious God-given life, character, passion and a future beyond where we came from, what we do and how we look.

Let’s look beyond the obvious to what ‘can be’. Some friends of mine are doing this right now. I’m taking a team out to India in February to see how they are getting on. Children are being rescued, food and medical help is being provided. What others threw away as worthless lives, we are taking hold of, giving children a hope and a future. The Bible says God takes all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms— and they get properly fixed and fitted together in vibrant harmonies (Colossians 1: 19, the Message version of the Bible). So good that God didn’t asses us on what we can and can’t do!

The labels others have given don’t determine who we are.