On Sunday the 31st October, the clocks change from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time. It is quite fun to see those who have missed the time adjustment when they turn up an hour early for church! It is not so much fun to get it wrong yourself. I have got it wrong twice. Once I turned up an hour early forgetting that the clocks had changed. Another year I turned my clock the wrong way, so making me 2 hours late! There is the task of changing all the clocks. In our house, there is at least one clock in every room and then the microwave, cooker, the heating controls and the car clocks!
So what happens to the hour? The Summer Time Act 1972 originally defined the period of British Summer Time to start at 2 am (GMT) on the morning of the day after the third Saturday in March or, if that was Easter Day, the day after the second Saturday. It was to end at 2 am (GMT) on the day after the fourth Saturday in October. In recent years it has been changed to bring the date of the start of Summer Time into line with that used in Europe. So Summertime is now in force from the last Sunday in March until the last Sunday in October. I had not realised that Easter affected the date of summertime or that it was fixed on the Sunday after the third Saturday. Next year 2022, summertime will start on 27th March which looks like the EU rules. Interestingly, the EU parliament has voted to scrap the clock being changed altogether! We will see if that happens.
When I worked shifts people were very quick to claim an hour of overtime for the extra hour but were very silent about losing an hour’s pay for a shorter night shift. Time does not stop for an hour or speed up to make up an hour. We just change the settings of the clock. What is interesting about time is that although it is a constant it feels different depending on what we are doing at the time. When we are busy time flies by and an hour passes quickly. Two minutes of silence on Remembrance Sunday seems to take a long time, an hour of silent stillness is often beyond our comprehension.
The bible seems more interested in what people do rather than how long it takes, to get to the place that God desires. Constantly, people wait on God and his timing which sometimes is measured in years and not hours. It appears to me that God is more patient than we could ever be. We are challenged to see if we are moving closer to God. It is the direction we move in that is more important than how long it takes.
