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Anyone over the age of 40 may remember how confusing it was to learn how to tell the time. We had to recognize that there was a long hand and a short hand. That the long hand told you the minutes and the short hand pointed to the hour. I can remember having to take tests in elementary school that showed clock faces set at various times. It was all so confusing.

Today, we suffer under the illusion that we have gotten better at learning how to tell time. The spread of the digital clock with its reading in numbers instead of a clock face makes learning to tell time as easy as counting from 1 to 60. But, we may have invented an easier way to read a clock, but our ability to tell the time has not really improved.

A 1969 hit by the Band Chicago asked our generation “Does anybody really know what time it is?” It was a time of great turmoil and struggle. Difficult issues pressed in on all sides. The song points out that we are obsessed with staying on time. But then it asks “Does anyone really know what time it is?”

We become obsessed with keeping up with human time, the time measured by ticks on the clock or the turn of a page in our calendar. We become fanatics about measuring how much time we spend at work, in the daily commute, and playing with our family. But have really learned how to tell time? Real time? God’s time?

If we see time as that flow of the moment as it moves from past to present to future, we begin to see time differently. Sleep time comes when our body is weary and ready for rest. Dinner time comes when our stomach says it is hungry. Family time arrives when one of our beloved needs some loving attention. Yet we ignore our bodies and work our way into exhaustion. We ignore our stomachs and grab a bite whenever we can whether we are hungry or not. And we ignore our family when they cry out for some TLC because we have miles to go and schedules to keep. We really have not learned how to tell time very well.

I invite you to spend more time learning how to tell God’s time. Look for the signs and wonders that surround you. Listen to the experiences that rise from inside of your daily living. God speaks to us in the whispers of moments as well as the deep yearnings of our own soul. God has made it possible for us to know the time if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. A healthy spirit is able to say “Yes!” most of time when asked, “Does anybody really know what time it is?”

Many years ago, a wise man took me aside to tell me the secret of life. He had seen how intense I could get. He had observed my hurried step and impatience with a world that refused to keep up. He sat me down under a tree and said very quietly. “Bob, you may not believe this but I have the secret of life.”

At first I thought he was telling me a joke and so I fired back with a wisecrack. But then I saw that his eyes were drilling into the deepest parts of my soul. “No, Bob, you don’t understand. I really do have the secret of life.”

I was not sure if I should run and call for help or sit still and listen. But there was something in his voice that invited me to simply sit and listen to what he had to say. In a few moments, his eyes began to soften and his mouth picked up a hint of a smile as he said, “Breathe!”

My very spirit was struck as if by a lightening bolt. “Say what?” I cried out.

“Breathe!” he said.

“Breathe?” I repeated. “Yes, breathe.” he replied.

Just think about it. What is the bare minimum we have to do to be alive? “Breathe.” Everything depends upon us taking air in and letting it out. Every thought, every action, every feeling depends upon one simple thing. Breathe! The ancient Hebrews believed that the Spirit of God was like the wind and that we became alive when the holy breath entered our bodies. We continued to live as long as we took in and exhaled that holy breath. Such a simple act, when done with a heart open to the Holy presence, offers us a quietness of spirit and a deep sense of peace. When our spirits are anxious we find solace in deep breaths. When we are winded from exercise or deep emotion, a few deep breaths help us regain a sense of self. When the pain become too intense we are told to breath and allow our body to deal with the pain in its own way.

And so, the next time you feel the blood pressure rising and the face starting to turn red, stop and just breathe. It truly is the secret to life!

When our soul places a halo around an idea we form a belief. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with belief or believing. I have been in the business of fostering belief in people’s lives most of my adult life. Belief helps us get through our days. Believing enables us to sort out the mysteries in life and come up with ways to deal with many of the unknowns that swirl around us. Unfortunately, beliefs can also lead us into error and foster a not very pretty side of life. Belief hardens into a prejudice when we close ourselves off to the truth. In fact, belief will trump truth if it has enough emotional investment behind it. If we want to believe something hard enough, it will lock the truth, even self-evident truth, away in a prison called heresy.

Beliefs cannot set us free. Jesus said in John’s gospel, the truth will make you free. By remaining open to God’s revealing self we are able to take hold of truth. We need the power of belief to give us the courage to face the darkness. However, when we discover a light shining in that darkness, God expects us to open our eyes and be open to what that light has to offer. The truths that come to us in those moments shine a little brighter and reveal more of the world to us. We become free to explore a little bit more of life.

But, when belief holds the truth captive, we find ourselves stumbling around in a darkness that will not yield. Our lives become wrapped in anger and bitterness. Because the world will not conform itself to our wants and wishes, we rant and rail at the unfairness of life. When people offer different opinions or insights that challenge our hardened beliefs we feel fully justified in lashing out at them. We limit our friends to those who share our beliefs. We become more and more insulated from anything that might challenge our haloed belief. The darkness becomes darker. When our beliefs hold truth captive, we are held captive as well.

I invite you to foster those beliefs that lead you to challenge the darkness that surrounds you. But hold that belief carefully, allowing the truth to help shape your belief and push back that darkness. Seek the freedom that is ours as children of God, a freedom to believe and to change our beliefs when they no longer speak the truth.

Horizons never really meant very much to me when I was growing up. I was surrounded by trees and hills. The horizon was never very far away. It was a line of trees or a ring of hills surrounding the Wimberley Valley. It held little mystery. It was just “the horizon.”

But, after spending a large part of the last 30 years in the flat prairies of the Midwest, Southern Ontario and the Gulf Coast of Texas I have come to appreciate the mystery of the horizon. After spending countless hours staring out at the vast expanse of Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico, the horizon has begun to speak to me in new ways. After a series of vacations where I pondered the world from the high trails of mountains and the open expanse of the Western deserts this “horizon” thing is starting to make sense.

The horizon is simply a matter of perspective. Every single person sees their own particular horizon. It is that mysterious place where the infinite sky meets the very finite world. It is always beyond our reach. We can never stand on the horizon. However, it may be beyond our physical reach, it is always within grasp by the mind and heart that have the courage to seek for it.

Horizons are very useful to our mind. They help us to determine where we need to move. Our mind has placed 360 points along the circle that is our horizon. 90 degrees is east. 180 degrees is south. 270 degrees is west. 360 degrees is north. By looking to the horizon we can find direction for our travels. But we must periodically check the horizon to make sure that we are still on course. This requires that we make little corrections from time to time by relying on the horizon in our mind. While these horizons are helpful to our mind, they are absolutely vital to our souls.

Horizons remind us that there is more to living than the here and now. They offer us tangible evidence of a distant reality. The world where we spend our lives extends all the way to the horizon is real. We know this by our own experience. When we stand on the shore we can see this real world extending all the way to the horizon. When we stand in the middle of the desert we can see the sand stretching al the way to the line that marks the horizon. That line we call the horizon that separates the real from the infinite is also very real. It connects us to the deepest stirrings within ourselves. It reminds us that there is much more to life than the earth beneath our feet, the here and now of living. Life stretches into the infinite expanse that begins at the horizon of our lives.

The next time you have the opportunity to stand on the water’s edge take a look at that thin line that separates heaven and earth, the sea and sky. For that horizon will offer you the confidence to walk into a tomorrow that is beyond the veils of time itself, where God exists in the eternity of our lives.