“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
(Psalm 90:12 NIV)
I learned a new word today – twaddle. It’s specifically a literary term used for works that are trivial or foolish. I was listening to the Fierce Marriage podcast while I poly-eurothaned the youth room floor. The hosts of the podcast were talking about how twaddle is more than books, but can include any wasteful or mindless activity we invest ourselves in. We fritter our time away on twaddle, inadvertantly missing the most important opportunities right under our noses. Twaddle is the stuff that doesn’t matter; the fluff, the foolish, the trivial. The stuff that occupies our time but doesn’t engage our souls. If we aren’t aware and careful, we can twaddle away our hours, our families, our marriages, and our short seventy or eighty years on the planet.
I think about my students staying home as this pandemic lengthens. Social isolation is a shadow stretching across our regular lives and wrapping us in individual darkness. How are we spending our time? Youtube. Netflix. The endless feeds of Instagram and Facebook. Tik Tok and SnapChat. Fortnight and Animal Crossing. Fox news and CNN. There’s a point where we are no longer connecting with souls on the other side of the screen, when we’ve digressed to insatiable consumers. The content we are gulping down is nutrient-deficient for our souls.
Friends, we’ve been given a window. A season to stay at home and grow our souls. We talked about it last night in youth service; how waiting time isn’t wasted time if we are willing to grow. If we will set aside the twaddle or at least limit it and look for the things that fill our soul, that fuel our families, that stoke our hope in full restoration.
“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16 NIV)
Lord, forgive us for the time we’ve wasted. Help us identify the twaddle in our lives. May we seize this opportunity to grow closer to You and more sure of Your word. Make us more like You in this season of stillness. Amen.