Tick. tock. tick. tock…

In most of the rooms in our apartment (and in my office at the church) are “old school” clocks that tick and tock with each passing second.

Sometimes I find myself so busy with whatever task I’m working on that I don’t even notice the faint noise. Other times the ticking is so loud that I can scarcely hear anything else.

On the days miss the sound of the ticking, I usually sit down in my office, a chair in the student center at East Carolina or at a table in the local Starbucks and, before it feels like I even get started, the sun is going down and my day is ending.

Other days, I’m more aware of what is going on around me: sitting on a beach on vacation, getting lost in a good book, or even sitting in the arm chair in my office thinking through the ministry that has passed and the ministry that is to come. It is in these times of slowest bliss that I am able to picture the faces and moments that have brought laughter, tears, amazement, and excitement into my life; those memories that keep me moving forward.

I know I’m young (27 next year) but it feels like I’ve spent more moments rushing past the ticking seconds rather than slowing down to savor them:

Running through the woods with my brothers as a young boy, laughing with my friends over slurpies in the middle school cafeteria, moving into a college dorm for the first time, getting my Divinity School pin, the three times I walked across a stage to receive a diploma, the early budding relationship between me and my wife, and even my wedding day; all memories that seem so close, yet, so far away from this present moment.

More often than not, I wish I had a time machine that would allow me to re-live a few of those moments. If I could, I would try and slow down more, enjoying those fleeting minutes and not wishing the future to come so quickly.

Even now, as I listen to the seconds tick by on the clock near my home office, I wonder if I’m slowing down enough to hear them or wishing they would tick a little faster, on to the next “thing”.

It is a struggle, one that is deep within me, one that is so strong that it threatens to tear me apart: on one hand wanting it all to speed up to get to the “next milestone” and on the other really, truly, wanting to slow down and hold onto every precious second.

I’m always warned by those older, wiser people in my life that time goes by fast. Even at 26, I’d have to say I agree with them. The present, I’ve learned, will all too quickly become a distant memory. Things that seem like they’ll never change, people that seem like will always be a part of your life, fade from it quicker than you can keep up.

With this in mind is it better to wish the seconds tick quicker, avoiding the heartbreak that comes with these things fading away?

I don’t think so.

If I’ve learned one thing over the past few years it’s that every second counts and matters.

The challenge for us today is to take the time to slow down, close our eyes and cherish the memories of the past and present; tilting our ear toward their never-changing song of the nearby clock:

tick. tock. tick. tock…

May the beauty of every passing second fill our minds, hearts and lives as we decelerate our busyness to hear them, lest we find that they’ve passed us by quickly while we were distracted by worries that will soon fade away.