It’s About Time
Two men were talking. One had been retired for a short while; the other man was still working. The worker, curious about retired life, asked the other man what he did with his time. The retiree looked around slowly, as if wanting to make sure nobody else would hear his secret, and replied, “Nothin’.” Then, after pausing for a couple of moments, he added, “And I don’t start that ‘til after lunch.”
While working an 8-to-whenever job in Information Technology, I looked forward to retirement like a person yearns for a tall glass of cool water after a long, hot, arduous trek through the desert. But not so I could do “nothin’.” No, I wanted to be able to go out and do nature photography whenever I wanted to. After all,
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven
– Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)
However, I found retirement reality to be quite different from my wishes. There was:
a time to be a good husband and a time to help around the house,
a time to pay bills and a time to take out the garbage,
a time for family and a time for friends,
a time for prayer and Bible study and a time for worship,
a time for ministry and a time for missions,
a time to pay bills and a time to take out the garbage (again),
a time to clean our cars and a time to fill them with gas,
a time to eat and a time to exercise,
a time to listen to robocalls and a time to delete them,
a time to write and (finally!) a time to photograph.
Be careful how you use words and time.
You can’t get either of them back.
– Grandmother to her grandchildren in
Bill Keane’s comic strip “The Family Circus”
Not only is my time for nature photography limited, it is further constrained by needing to be the right time.
For example, to work with waterfalls, optimal conditions are overcast light after a period of rain.
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To shoot scenery, clear blue skies usually work best, perhaps with a few cotton ball clouds.
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For photographing individual wildflowers, I prefer an overcast sky or shade and little or no wind.
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I want to be a good steward of the resources God has entrusted to me. One of these resources – and I think one of the most valuable – is time. So, I try to be intentional about when I get outdoors with my camera gear. Which makes those times all the more special!
I try to regard each new day as a gift from God to be unwrapped and used on His behalf, whether I’m taking out the garbage, writing, deleting robocalls, or out photographing His creation.
Honor God by carefully investing
the precious moments of time that He gives you.
– Dr. David Jeremiah