“There is a time for everything…”  Ecc. 3:1

The contest was simple. Tell a story about someone who showed genuine care for others. The stories would be judged and the most caring person announced and honored in a community event. The winner turned out to be a four year-old boy whose next-door neighbor, an elderly gentleman, recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother later asked him what he said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing…I just helped him cry.”

Here was a four year-old with wisdom beyond his years who “got it”. He understood what we adults often forget–that there is a time for everything.

In one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, Solomon reminds us that the wise “get it” when it comes to the appropriate use of time. In other words, if I am wise, I will know when it’s the right time for something to be done and the right something for the time. I grasp the preciousness of this asset and understand that time is like a coin God has given me to spend. I determine how it will be spent, but if I am not careful, I will come to the end of the day and eventually the end of my life, only to discover the coins have indeed been spent, but little to show for them.

As wise grandparents, we want our grandkids to know the value of this precious and limited resource called time. May God grant us wisdom to use our time well so that we might be an example of how to spend time on the right things at the right time–kind of like climbing up in someone’s lap and just helping them cry.

GRANDPAUSE: “The time is always right to do what is right.”  — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.