Wasting Time

"Take time to stop and smell the roses."

Such a cliché!  Who has time (or desire) to stop and smell the roses?  We spend our time running from one thing to the next, rarely taking time to stop and do anything that might be considered a waste of time.

OK, I'll be honest.  I often waste time, but I hear that there are people who do not.  I understand there are people who never even see the roses.

One of the reasons I started taking pictures was to slow myself down so that I could really look around and see the evidence of God.  You can read about how I began the journey in 2006 here and here.  I'm still doing it -- not as much as I did in the years following 2006, but I still do it.  Using a camera to capture images requires you to look -- at least it does if you want good images.

Holding that thought for a moment, why is it that we are urged to take time each day to study or to read a devotional?  Why stop in our busy day and "waste" time on something like this?

In reading one such devotional, I found this quote from Arthur F. Gafke (in Disciplines 2013):

As we slow down to cherish God's beginnings with us, we can find that the conclusions are transformed because we are transformed by beautiful beginnings.

Why pause?  Why take time at the beginning to cherish God and his work?  According to Gafke, it's because when we pause at the beginning, the end changes.  Somehow, the end is transformed by the pause at the start. He goes on to say that it is because we are transformed by the time with God.

Not a waste of time, at all.  I need to be transformed.