Chapter 5: TIME: A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT.
Even though children lack nearly everything they need to be a functioning adult, they do have the same amount of time. How we as adults allow the child to use that time is critical. “Young people were simply not made to the fulfillment machines of adult wishes.”
Trial By Clarinet. Wess tells the story of a child he was an au pair for whose rich Father terrorized him with clarinet lessons. Corrie Ten boom said, “If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.”
Invasion of the Bureaucrats. Wess tells the story of when the French descended on the village asking questions about the future, unanswerable questions really. The chief and the French ended up frustrated and angry with each other. That night the chief talked about time as a river where the future is unknown just as the upstream flow of a river is unknown. The chief said, “The smaller that men can measure the day, the more angry they seem to be.”
In the Fullness of Time. We must let time be our servant, not our master. Jesus never seemed to hurry. We need to put our trusting the Lord and lean on his understanding as the Proverb says.