Our time or His time?

                                    A little food for weekend thought:
     From C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters: 
            (a quick reminder--Screwtape is a fictional senior devil who corresponds with a junior tempter, Wormwood, and is trying to mentor Wormwood in the art of tempting, destroying, and wooing his subject--the human to whom he is assigned--over to satan.  Thus, in Screwtape Letters, "our father" actually refers to our enemy, satan, and "the Enemy" actually refers to the Lord.  Just to clarify!)

     "Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury.  And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied.  The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured, and, as a result, ill-tempered.  Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him.  It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend's talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tete-a-tete with the friend), that throw him out of gear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it.  They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen.  You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own.'  Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of 24 hours.  Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties.  But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.
     The assumption that you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense.  The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.  He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy [remember--this refers to God]; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even one day, he would not refuse.   He would be greatly relieved if that one day involved nothing harder than listening to the conversation of a foolish woman; and he would be relieved almost to the pitch of disappointment if for one half-hour in that day the Enemy said, "Now, you may go and amuse yourself.'  Now if he thinks about his assumption for a moment, even he is bound to realize that he is actually in this situation every day."

     Boy, Lewis' words convicted this Type A, often impatient, sometimes frustrated, multi-tasker!  Don't we all make this assumption?--these 24 hours belong to me.  This is my day, my time to do with as I please... and especially to discharge all my chores and duties--without interruption or interference.  And, of course, there are always interruptions, snafus, and unexpected needs of others that need to be addressed.  And these can drive me crazy!
     How do we respond at that crucial intersection where our expectations for our day meet up with God's plans and His sovereignly-sent interruptions?   Will we entrust our days and our plans to the One who created every hour and graciously gifted those minutes to us or will we bustle about, busy with our own agenda and resentful of every intrusion or delay?
     "In acceptance lieth peace," Elizabeth Elliott frequently declared.  Surely our attitude about our/His time and our/His agenda provides one of the greatest proving grounds where we can experience either frequent frustration and irritation (if we assume it's our time) or profound peace and joy (if we recognize that in reality, it all--every second, minute, and hour--was created by, and belongs to, God alone).
     So just in case you, like yours truly, needed the reminder: today is His day.  Tomorrow is His day as well.  He created each and every day, and the great and ever-present and eternal I AM, is fully and completely in control of every moment of every one of our days.
      If He who is all-good and all-knowing is on the throne of all our days, well then, don't you think we can relax a bit and trust His ways and His plans for this day... and the next... and the next?  If He sends interruptions or unexpected challenges or disappointments our way, then we can trust that the One who owns it all anyway knows best and is working everything--including every minute, hour, and day--for His glory and our good.
     Whether it's our child's sudden stomach bug or that emergency or our friend's unexpected need or perhaps that task that we so disdain or dread that's suddenly thrust in our path, it's all passed through His perfect, omniscient hands and heart.  If He allowed it in our day, we can be assured it's the best way.  Time to stop assuming and start trusting and obeying.
      Thanks for this day, Lord....another day to live for You and Your glory.   Free us from impatience and worry and keep us trusting and faithful--no matter what this day might bring... 'cause it's all Yours, and You've got it!
     To God be the glory.