Time slips into something more comfortable as we age — less constrained by exactness or observation.
When I was a child, I played in sandboxes.
I didn’t understand the significance of each grain of sand as I sifted and molded my imagination into castles to be built. My mind was too entertained by youth to recognize that the collective was comprised of individual grains.
Time was as it should have been. I was allowed to be and act like a child. I frolicked under the sun’s watch during the day and rested my exhaustion upon my pillow at night.
As I have grown older, my sandbox has transformed into a sand clock.
The narrowness of the hourglass’s throat speaks to the significance of the moment.
What I allow into the space of today has the potential to impact every day that follows. Knowing this truth, I must be aware of the quality of my thoughts, as they are housed in the sphere where I define the world.
If I continually perceive the world through a critical lens, my throat will form harsh, gritty words.
If I practice observing the world through a lens of love, my throat will form words of peace, forgiveness, and hope.
The hourglass will inevitably reveal the condition of the heart.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it,” Proverbs 4:23.
Calloused hearts can become clogged, eventually failing the very person they are meant to keep alive. In this failing, castles fall under the scorching sun, and pillows no longer feel as soft at night.
If we are not mindful, we can become sandpaper people: difficult people who rub others the wrong way through our discontented spirit.
Where are you fixing your thoughts? Are you positioning yourself in a pattern of bitterness or blessing?
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me — everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you,” Philippians 4:8-9.
On any given day, we rub against another’s spirit, either in conversation or by way of a simple stare. If we train ourselves to be aware, we can discern what is meant for harm versus what is meant for edification.
We can learn to recognize hardened hearts and understand that their opinions are often comprised of angst, disappointment, and unresolved fear.
The burn from their friction may cause pain to those around them, an unfortunate result of a sandpaper person trying to pass through their suffering — we can become collateral damage.
It is crucial to put health-giving buffers between you and sandpaper people. Abrasive people often believe themselves to be so right that only others can be wrong. Their conviction is embedded in a dangerous level of arrogance, shrouded in their belief that they are justified.
“A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart,” Proverbs 21:2.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, time has slipped into something much too comfortable in today’s world — less constrained by truth, manners, or faith.
People barely take inventory of their thoughts, much less the consequences of their words and actions. The significance of each grain of sand, each person, and each moment is often gone before it is fully appreciated — for what it was and what it was not.
What is God putting upon your heart to do today?
Are you a carrier of faith, hope, and love?
“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love,” 1 Corinthians 13:13.
The sand clock is flowing.
This column was initially published by CherryRoad Media. ©Tiffany Kaye Chartier.