For church on Sundays, my wife, Donna, and I work with college-age youth. The church meetings are held on a church-owned campus, so on Sundays, classrooms become Sunday School rooms, and faculty offices become ecclesiastical offices.
I thoroughly enjoy my work with the youth on Sundays. As a teacher at the university, my weekdays are filled with grading, helping students who have not done their homework, and encouraging and prodding in any way I can to help them pass my classes. But on Sundays, I can just enjoy being in church with them. On other days of the week, we also participate in activities with them.
The youth are so vibrant and excited about life. They see so much of the adventure that awaits them in their future. But sometimes they just need someone who has been there that they can talk to. Often, they don’t need your advice, just someone to listen to them as they figure out the answer on their own.
On some Sunday mornings, both youth and adult leaders meet to determine the needs of the young people we work with. This meeting always starts with a five-minute devotional that is rotated among the group. As would be my luck, my day fell on Daylight Savings weekend in the fall.
That is not the best weekend for anything in church. Even though people gain an hour, everyone’s sleep is thrown off, and people still come to church tired.
I thought for a long time about what I could share that would be inspiring, especially on that weekend. The thought needed to be kept as close to five minutes as possible so we could get to the business at hand.
I feel that, at least for me, something is more meaningful if it is shared as a story taken from one’s own experience. The problem is, if I share a story, I tend to get off topic, and then the time passes quickly.
I was determined to stay within the allotted time, so I first chose a topic where I could get the point across quickly. I put a clock in front of me and practiced multiple times, ensuring I stayed within the time limit. The first few times, I got to the end of the time and was only halfway through the thought. I kept cutting and cutting until I came in at five minutes, almost to the second.
On that weekend, I got up early and did one last practice. As Donna and I headed off to the meeting, I felt confident it would be just right. We all sat in a circle, so I chose a seat so I was positioned facing directly toward the only clock in the room. I looked at it, and it had not yet been set for daylight savings time. It was still an hour off, but that didn’t matter, because I just had to look at the minute hand no matter what hour it was on.
The meeting started, and time was turned to me. I stood up and looked at the clock to get my bearing on when the five minutes would end. However, before I could say a word, something happened that I hadn’t expected.
The clocks on the campus are all controlled from one central place. Those in charge can set all of them at once, but the only way they can set them back an hour is to spin the minute hand around the clock twenty-three times. As I looked at the clock, the minute hand started spinning around, circling the clock about every twenty seconds.
I stood there stunned, so everyone else turned to look at the clock. I finally found my voice and shared the thought as I had practiced it. I was sure it was close to the five minutes allowed. But when I finished, one leader smiled and said, “That was the fastest twenty-three-hour-and-five-minute devotional I have ever heard.”
And so it was.
