Central Abbotsford

A few weeks ago, I had a morning set aside to accomplish a few things. I had a ministry obligation in the evening, so I didn’t need to rush into the office. After dropping the kids off at the school, my plan was to head straight to Costco to get gas and groceries before the inevitable rush there, then head home to unpack them before enjoying about a half-hour of quiet time, of “me time”, then driving to the office. However, as Robert Burns wrote 240 years ago (translated slightly): “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray.”

All seemed to be going well at first. Dropoff at school was smooth. Costco wasn’t too busy. And there was a three-pack of rainbow tortellini on sale! The kids love tortellini. I got through the checkout and was on the way to get my receipt scrutinized to determine whether I’d tried to sneak another hummus container into my buggy, when I decided to pre-scrutinize my bill and realized that the cashier had scanned that $14.99 (on sale from $17.99) tortellini twice!

Now, my first thought was, admittedly, “this is going to be more trouble than it’s worth.” But then I had a second thought, one that overrode the first. I may not be a Mennonite by heritage (only by grafting into the family tree), but as the Robbie Burns quote above suggests, I do have some Scottish heritage. And if there is a people that gives Mennonites a run for their (desire not to spend) money, it’s the Scots. So I found myself telling the receipt inspector about my plight, while worriedly looking at the return line that was queued out the front door.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when the employee told me that instead of having to solve my problem in the return line, I could just go to the other counter where membership renewals are processed. There were only two people in that line! This wouldn’t take long at all! So, I turned around and got in the mercifully shorter line. And waited.

And waited.

And waited. Waited for longer than it’s taken you to read so far.

I’m not exactly sure what was going on at the counter in front of me but whatever was happening was not happening quickly. I watched the return line marching along while I stood there smiling and internally stewing about how much of MY time was being wasted in that moment. As the minutes ticked by, and I kept standing in place, my thoughts were, I must confess, much less than pastoral. I had little care for the people in front of me who needed no less assistance than I did. All I could think about was how every second that elapsed robbed me of what I had planned.

Eventually I made it to the counter and had my refund issued. I hustled out to the car, emptied the cart quickly, and drove home to see what time remained for me. Because I now had two receipts in my hand, I had a timestamp of exactly how much time had been wasted…nineteen whole minutes! That left me with just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat and then head to the church.

Nineteen minutes. Nineteen minutes that I stood there stewing over the loss of what I viewed as my time. Nineteen minutes that I wasn’t spending praying, wasn’t spending thinking through what I had been reading in the Scriptures, wasn’t doing anything but complaining in my own head. And why? Because I believed that time belonged to me.

Romans 14:7-8 tells us “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” In other words, my life – very literally, my time – is for the Lord. There is a Latin phrase, coram Deo, that literally means “before the face of God” that captures this notion.

In those nineteen minutes, I was living my life as though it was coram Eric alone. My problem, my sin, in that moment, was that I viewed the circumstances of life as taking away something that I was sovereign over, not God. Of course, when I reflected on this later, I felt pretty foolish about myself. It was literally only nineteen minutes.

Perhaps my experience at that moment is something that you can relate to. Perhaps it’s something that you can relate to far too well. Consider this: in moments like this, perhaps God is demonstrating His great kindness in revealing your own sin and weakness to you. Romans 2:4 tells us that God’s kindness in His patience and forbearance from punishing our sin serves the express purpose of leading us to repentance. I may have viewed this time as my own, but God was using it for His purposes to remind me of my ongoing need for Christ, every single second. 

The next time you look back over your life and lament how you have chosen to use your time, let Him cover you in His forgiveness, remind you that your life is lived fully coram Deo, fully before His face, and pray that He would give you the strength to live your next second (or 19 minutes, or until eternity) in response to that reality.