Donation of Time

            Charity basically means giving. One of the commandments Jesus has given us is to GIVE your belongings to others. He said to the rich man to sell all the property and share it with the poor and that’s the way to enter eternal life. Most of the Christians and the Christian churches has given great importance to this and is helping thousands of poor around the world. We also share our money with the church and its members to build our own places to worship and get together. All this money is the money we are giving to God from what He has given us. And most often, our charitable activities gets compressed to dollars or rupees, and nothing else. Even in church, a lot of people just give importance only in paying the subscription and all, and we often forget to spend our time with God.

             When Jesus says to GIVE, He just doesn’t mean to give the wealth we have. It has a wider meaning; I basically mean to give or submit you to the Lord God, submit the whole life for the GLORIFICATION of Him. As Father has given us His own Son for the redemption of the world, we all who testifies as believers in Christ has the responsibility to submit to God. Submitting to God includes spending our time to God too. And therefore it means spending our time for the poor and the needy too, with a helping hand and a wish to care and that is what I mean by the title Donation of Time. Mother Teresa will be the best example we could find in this century who has purely and completely donated all her TIME for God and the poor, and the sick. She found God in them, and she spent her whole life taking care of them. This was the purest form of Love, and this was the greatest gift God received back from St. Teresa for redeeming her by giving her His son (Jesus was given as a gift to the whole world. Jesus died for each and every one of us). Father Damien is another well known example who was taking care of the leper patients, and finally died acquiring leprosy.

 Purpose of Creation

It will be good to explain the Purpose of Creation to understand the donation of Time in a better way. I believe that Purpose of Creation of human being is the Divine Love found in the Holy Trinity, which THEY decided to share with THEIR children (humans), so that the Love and sharing in the Holy Trinity will reach its completeness in all aspects. The purpose of humans is to glorify God, which is very necessary for the survival of us. The glorification of our Lord reaches it maximum when there is a completion in Love, when we truly understand what God’s path is meant and when we truly accept it.  This completeness of Love to God has to be attained to Glorify Him purely. As Christians our journey should be towards achieving the completeness of Love towards our Lord.

             I think completeness of Love in Humans towards God occurs when there is an equal amount of flow of Love among the Father and the children, or the complete sharing of Love between God and man. Our Lord has given us all the Love, has shown us all the Love and its seen right in front of our eyes. He came to the earth and suffered and died for us and that is the greatest expression of His love towards us. He submitted completely to redeem us. To have the equal amount of Love between us and our God, we should also submit ourselves completely to His will. As Jesus has obeyed His Father completely, we all have the responsibility to obey our Heavenly Father completely. “Be you therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling smell.” (Eph 5: 1, 2)

             To complete the purpose of creation, we all have to submit ourselves and submitting ourselves basically means spending our time for Lord. One way to spend our time for God is prayers. Our great Fathers have divided a day in to seven parts and different prayers were being composed to be prayed at those particular times. Nowadays, we often hesitate to do that even in church on Sundays. We often skip through the Morning Prayer before the Holy Qurbana to save time. The same culture is developing in our homes too, when we change our prayer schedule from one time to other based on the time schedule of different shows we have to watch on TV’s. And prayer of course has become something which can be easily omitted if we don’t have time, or it is some thing which can be done in a very short way just by saying a word and a cross.

             At the time of creation, God has spent 6 days creating this beautiful world for His children. The effort of God to us is simply amazing, and this shows the love and care He had to us. We read in Psalms 121 that “he that keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” We have a Lord who is watching over us every minute, and not just watching over us but my giving everything needed to sustain our lives as a blessing every single day. God has spent 6 days to create a world for us. How many days do we spend in loving and glorifying Him??? Prayers have become a ritual nowadays, and it has become a 2 hour service on Sundays. Is this what we are giving His back for all the Love He has given us???

             St. Paul in his epistle to Ephesians says, “be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks ALWAYS for all things to God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”

St. Paul insists to give thanks to the Lord ALWAYS, and to live in speaking words of our God so that it will enhance the spiritual lives of everyone. We all get attracted to the world of pleasure so often, spent all the time for that and forget about the words of God, which is a huge hindrance to the completeness of love we have to acquire.

             St. Paul says, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” This leads us to the path of helping those who need it. Helping with money is great but our time and presence also can do a lot more. As I said above, St. Teresa is the best example. By money we can help only the economically poor, but by time we will be helping the spiritually poor and struggling, and we will be saving lives. We will be bringing more souls to the path of salvation by spending our time for those who needs the word of God. And if we are spending our time praying just for our needs, it is very selfish and is against the word of God. As Christians we all have the responsibility to bring our brothers and sisters to the word of God, to the path of salvation so that they also can be with Jesus when He comes again.

             To have completeness, we have to share equal amount of Love with God, which means we have to provide the same amount of Love to the nearby brother and the sick and poor we see in this world. As we read in St. John “My children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” We have to love in DEED and in TRUTH. That is love in action, and that is expected from the humans while he was created. There lies the true completeness, when we 'DO LOVE' and not 'Say Love'. Doing Love is different than saying Love. Doing Love requires our time and will. The love we received from God was not said but DONE. And that is the step towards completeness and that is the step to glorifying Him and therefore that is what expected from humans by God, because Loving Him and Glorifying Him is itself the purpose of creation.

             Dear friends, donate your time for God, and donate your time for the needy. Let us share the time with each other which we receive as a free gift from God. The smallest amount of time spent can bring marvelous changes. Lord is with us. Praise Him!!!