Telling Time
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Before we rush into another moment, here’s a reminder that time is more than something we keep—it’s something we’re invited to live.
Time is not a commodity we control, but a gift we receive.
— Barbara Brown Taylor
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
— Mary Oliver
Ecclesiastes 3:1
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Food for Thought
In the entranceway of my parents’ home stands a beautiful oak grandfather clock. It’s one of those clocks you could once buy as a kit and then assemble yourself—which my Granddaddy did some 60 years ago as a gift for my dad.
For most of my life, it sat silent, the hands still. But in recent years, my parents had it repaired, and now it keeps steady time—ticking with the swing of its pendulum and chiming on the hour.
It’s one of several clocks in their home that tick, tock, or chime—each one keeping its own rhythm. There are so many ways we mark the passing of time these days—watches that track our steps, phones that buzz with reminders, alarms that pull us into motion.
There’s a constant keeping of time happening all around us.
The sun measures each day with its rising and setting, stretching shadows long in the morning and drawing them in again at dusk. Seasons move in their quiet procession, reminding us that change has its own pace. Even our bodies are timekeepers—the steady beat of a heart, the breath that moves in and out without asking, the hidden turning of cells that restore us while we sleep.
We live inside these rhythms whether we notice them or not—carried along by a cadence older and steadier than anything we can program on a screen.
But there’s more to keeping time than just counting hours.
There’s also the grace of recognizing a moment—of sensing when something is shifting or stirring, even if you can't quite name it.
As a farmer knows, timing matters. You can’t rush a harvest by the hands of a clock. You wait and watch—you learn from the soil, the sky, the feel of the season. Or like a fisherman, you begin to read the water—the pull of the tide, the drift of the current. You sense when to let the line rest and when it’s time to draw it in. No clock can teach that. It’s a kind of knowing that comes from paying attention and trusting the rhythm of things.
Scripture speaks to this kind of wisdom, too.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”
These words remind us that our lives are held in a larger rhythm—that we’ll experience all kinds of seasons: times of mourning and laughter, conflict and peace, loss and new beginnings.
But they also invite us to do more than just move through time. They invite us to discern it. There’s a time to speak and a time to stay silent. A time to stay rooted, and a time to take a brave step forward. A time to wait patiently, and a time to move because the moment has come.
And right now, it feels like we’re living in a moment that’s asking something of us.
We come to the end of one heavy week after another. Our communities feel weary. Trust is thin. Fear shapes too many of our conversations, and the noise of our conflict often drowns out the quieter voices we most need to hear.
There’s a kind of urgency in the air. And maybe that urgency is a call—not to panic, but to pay attention.
Because we’re meant to be people who can tell the time—not just by the clock, but by the Spirit.
People who are willing to listen carefully. Who can sense when it’s time to rest, and when it’s time to rise. Who don’t rush too quickly to action or retreat too quickly into comfort—but who are trying, in our own imperfect way, to follow the Spirit’s lead.
That’s the heart of this passage in Ecclesiastes:
Time isn’t just something to manage; it’s a holy mystery to inhabit with wisdom and grace.
The times we’re living in are heavy—but they’re not without hope.
God is still moving—sometimes in the slow work of mending, sometimes in the sudden prompting to speak, or to reach out, or to stay with someone’s pain a little longer than is comfortable.
Our invitation is simply this:
To stay awake.
To be present.
To keep listening.
To become people who can tell the time—
not just with schedules and reminders,
but with a heart that’s learning to move in rhythm with God.
Just like that old clock in my parents’ hallway—ticking, swinging, chiming in steady time—may we become people who carry a quiet kind of wisdom.
People who aren’t just counting minutes, but who are learning to live the moment well.
Pay attention to the natural rhythms of your day—sunlight shifting, your breath, a friend’s emotion, the pace of your household or community. What do these rhythms teach you about timing and presence?
Reflect on your current season of life. Is it a time for holding on or letting go? A time for beginning something new, or for resting? A time for speaking up or for carefully listening? How might God be meeting you in this moment?
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
God who moves through silence and song,
through stillness and stirring—teach us to listen for the rhythm of Your grace. When the world feels rushed, slow our steps. When the moment calls, steady our courage. Help us not only to count the days, but to enter them with your wisdom.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
What rhythms—of nature, your body, or your spirit—have you been noticing lately? What might they be trying to tell you?
What voices or noises tend to drown out the quiet nudges of the Spirit in your life? What helps you listen more closely?
What does faithful action look like in this season—for your community, your relationships, or the wider world?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
What helps you notice when something around you is changing—like the weather, someone’s feelings, or a moment that feels important?
Are there times when you just need to be quiet and listen? What do you hear when you do that?
Can you think of a time when you just knew it was the right moment to do something—like help, speak up, or be quiet? What happened?
Meet This WEek’s Writer...
Lin Story-Bunce is a North Carolina native and lovingly calls Greensboro, NC home. She earned a Masters of Divinity from Wake Forest University and has served a wonderful and thoughtful congregation at College Park Baptist Church since 2009, pastoring to families and their faith development. Most of all, Lin loves the moments she gets to connect with her family, snowboarding with her wife, and keeping up with their four kiddos and two energetic pups. Lin is a teacher, preacher, dreamer, and procrastinator who has a knack for trying to do way too many things in far too little time.
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