For the past five months I’ve been having some health issues. Nothing life-threatening or debilitating, so more of an annoyance. But it has meant that I can’t travel or do anything strenuous at all. So until the operations are complete, I can’t leave the house for very long.

I’ve found it a bit annoying, in that I’m more of an outdoor sort of person, enjoying walking, sports, wildlife and that sort of thing. So no sailing, golf, hiking, skiing, running or even drives to the countryside. We even had to cancel our holiday, as sitting for too long becomes uncomfortable as well, so there was no chance of sitting in a plane.

Fortunately my job lets me work from home (as I work in IT, designing, developing and maintaining remote server systems) and I’ve had to buy a kneeling stool to help with my posture and reduce the pressure on my waist that is caused by sitting.

So as a result I’ve had to find more things to do indoors (mainly to take my mind off boredom eating, as I’ve put quite a lot of weight on).

So, what to do?

I’ve been told I’m hyper-active and never take time to relax, so I’m probably fitting a full lifetime’s worth of relaxing into these five months.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading, playing computer games and actually getting my money’s worth out of Netflix, so in reality I’ve been doing nothing useful.

Solomon was a very wise man, giving very useful advice to others (but very rarely following it, to quote Alice from Alice in Wonderland). There are a few themes in Ecclesiastes, but one is about time and its uses.

There are a few in the New Testament that offer further advice.

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." (Ephesians 5:15–16, ESV)

So the lesson is to use time wisely, do things that are beneficial – this could include writing notes about biblical subjects that could be beneficial to others, studying the Bible, playing and/or signing hymns

So my personal goal has been to improve my piano playings, especially paying hymns from the hymn book and to write more study notes than I would normally do.

That isn’t something that should just apply to sickness, but we should prioritise our time to the benefit of God. But having more free time is something that has highlighted the time that we have.

In many ways time isn’t free, it’s the one thing that we have that is finite. We can’t buy more time, or get back any that was wasted. Time is valuable.

As I said at the beginning, my condition is more of an annoyance that a weakness, but there’s still the opportunity for my faith to grow. It highlights that we are mortal and in some ways weak. As we get older there are things that we could do, that we can’t now. I used to be able to run a lot faster 5 or 10 years ago than I did prior to this health issue. At the moment I can’t run at all.

But our fitness doesn’t improve our faith. On the contrary, 2 Cor 12:10 says "when I am weak, my faith is strong"

God has given us time and let us chose how we spend it, but whatever we do, it should be to increase our faith and to please Him.

So we have chosen to come and spend time remembering our Lord. He didn't give us many commandments, but one was to remeber him through the symbols of bread and wine. We take a little bit of time each Sunday to be away from the influences of the world and do this. But we should take time, to not only remember, but also to do what Jesus and God would want us to, each and every day.