# Time Day 1 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. > ### Opening Prayer: *Lord, Help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it. Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment. Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities. In the Name of Jesus I pray. Amen. (JLB)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 90 #### Book Four #### From Everlasting to Everlasting #### A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. *90 Lord, you have been our dwelling place[a] in all generations.* *2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”[b] 4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.* *5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.7 For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.* *9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;* *yet their span[c] is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. 11 Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? 12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.* *13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.16 Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.17 Let the favor[d] of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!* #### Scripture for the Day: Ecclesiates 3:1-11 #### A Time for Everything #### 3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: *2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.* #### Reading for Reflection: *The Greek word chronos means “time” in a quantitative sense, chronological time, time that you can divide into minutes and years, time as duration. It is the sense that we mean when we say, “What time is it?” or “How much time do you have?” or “”Time is like an ever-flowing stream,” in one of the hymns we sing. But in the Greek there is also the word kairos, which means “time” in the qualitative sense—not the kind that a clock measures but time that cannot be measured at all, time that is characterized by what happens in it. Kairos time is the kind that you mean when you say that “the time is ripe” to do something, “It’s time to tell the truth,” a truth-telling kind of time. Or “I had a good time”—the time had something about it that made me glad. The ancient poet who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes was using time in a kairos sense when he wrote of a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to keep silence and a time to speak. (The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Come, Now is the Time to Worship *Come, now is the time to worship* *Come, now is the time to give your heart* *Come, just as you are to worship* *Come, just as you are before your God* *Come* *One day every tongue will confess you are God* *One day every knee will bow* *Still the greatest treasure remains for those* *Who gladly choose you now* #### Closing Prayer: ​ *O Christ, when I look at you I see that you were never in a hurry, never ran, but always had time for the pressing necessities of the day. Give me that disciplined, poised life with time always for the thing that matters. For then I would be a disciplined person. Amen. (The Way by E. Stanley Jones)* ------------------