2018/08/18 - The Days are Evil

 
What’s Paul mean when he said ‘the days are evil’? 
           Brothers and sisters:
           Watch carefully how you live,
           not as foolish persons but as wise,
           making the most of the opportunity,
           because the days are evil.

I have a friend from India who came to the States to work.  She had been here for a couple of years before she decided to go back to India for a visit, and she was excited to see home again.  It was going to be a great visit – she would be there for 30 days – enough time to do everything she wanted to do and visit all of her family and friends.  But, when she got back here a month later, she said she didn’t get everything done – because the first three weeks, she kept thinking, I’ve got 30 days, no need to rush around – so instead she would let hours and even days just slip away doing nothing in particular.  Finally, the last week, she realized that time was short, and she tried to pack in all of her visits and to-do’s in the last week.  Afterward, she was kicking herself because she hadn’t used her time wisely.
You see the problem?  Whenever you and I think we have time to spare, our tendency is to just let it slip through our hands. 

That is what I think Paul means when he says, ‘watch carefully how you live because the days are evil’.  He’s recognizing that most of us live as though we have all the time in the world.  The days are evil means with every passing day, we are lulled into complacency about when our life will end.  No need to take care of that sin or that bad habit today, I can worry about it tomorrow.  No need to get out there and do the corporal works of mercy today, there will be plenty of time for that.  No need to forgive that person who wronged me – let them stew on it another day – I can forgive them tomorrow.  That’s where the evil comes from – we live unwisely because we think we’ve always got more time to live. 

But notice Paul is insisting that we ‘watch carefully how we live’ and ‘make the most of the opportunity’ – I think he’s saying – be wise about how you use your time – don’t waste it.  Be intentional with your time.  You’ve heard me use that word Intentional a lot – and you can count on me saying it a bunch, so let’s make sure we all understand it.  What’s it mean to be intentional?  Let’s say I’m going to drive to Colorado…. That doesn’t  just ‘happen’.  No – I have to plan ahead, cancel the mail, get somebody to care for the pets, rearrange my schedule, pack my camping gear, make sure the car is serviced.  But even that’s not enough – I have to pick a day and time that I’m leaving so the people travelling with me will be ready to go.  I can’t just keep thinking – I’ll wait until tomorrow to leave.  When we do get on the road – I need to get on the highway going West.  If I turn East, I’d be going in the wrong direction and never get to the place I wanted to go to. As I’m driving along, I can surely take my time, enjoy the trip, and stop once in a while at something that looks interesting – but if I spend too much time on side trips, I’ll never reach my destination before I run out of time and have to turn around to come home.  See what I mean?  Every trip has a destination and every trip will eventually come to an end, so while travelling, we HAVE to be intentional about how we use our time.  In other words, we have to do things ‘on purpose’ or ‘deliberately’.  To be intentional, means I to choose where I want go, then make a plan for how to get there – and then actually DO the things I need to do to get there.

Trouble is, when we’re NOT on vacation, we don’t have an explicit deadline.  In our everyday lives, it’s easy to be complacent about our time.  We might be intentional about some things in our life – like getting to work or school on time – but when we get home, we sit down for some well-deserved rest and often waste the rest of the day by flipping through the channels or surfing the web.  Is that the best use of our time? 
Paul says we should seek to understand and do the will of God.  God gives us 24 hours in a day to DO something FOR HIM….that’s right, our time belongs to God - But how much do we actually give to him?  Sure we’ve all got excuses – I’ve got mine too… I gotta sleep, I gotta cut grass, I gotta check my emails and facebook and oh – there’s another text just came in, and I gotta watch the news…  We let ourselves be distracted constantly… living as though we have all the time in the world.  We rush around doing all of the urgent stuff and never get to the important stuff.

Paul says, “Make the most of the opportunity because the days are evil.”
The days are evil, because we are supposed to do God’s will every minute…  every SECOND – but when we think we have all day, we will let those seconds and minutes slip away until  - until the days are gone….wasted.

This week, about 50 of us from around the diocese went to Branchville prison where we got a totally different perspective on wasting time.  We go up there every February and August for a ‘Reward Day’.  Whenever an offender goes an entire year without getting written up for misconduct, they are invited to attend our reward day where we serve them cookies and burgers and ice cream and watch a current movie – all stuff they rarely get in prison.  There are 1200 men locked up in that one prison.  Can you imagine putting your life on hold for that long?  Not being able to see your family, earn money, build a life, accomplish something?  For many of the men, they just get defiant and blame everyone else for their situation.  As a result, they cause trouble or they just simply exist – looking out only for themselves looking forward to the day they will finally be free.  The question is – free for what?  Most of them will likely fall back into the life they lived previously – addicted to alcohol and drugs.  But some of the men – many of whom were the 157 we got to feed Thursday, have taken Paul’s advice.  They are ‘watching carefully how they live’ – keeping their nose clean, so to speak.  They decided not to continue to live in ignorance… many of them are taking classes, getting certificates in skills that will help them earn a living when they get out.  For example, Brian told me he gets out October 21st, so he has gotten a certificate in culinary arts – hoping to get a job in a restaurant.  He recognized that his life was messed up because he was in construction and travelling all the time – and all the other guys would go out drinking and such every night – and that kind of lifestyle is what landed him in prison.  He doesn’t want to waste another minute of his life.

We also talked to several Catholic men who get together daily to read the daily readings, pray a rosary, and do book studies.  These guys could teach all of us something about the Bible and the Church!  What makes the difference?  They know that spending their time in prayer and study is what energizes them.  I talked to Randy who is worried that he won’t take that time to pray when he gets out… he’s afraid he’ll be like the rest of us who get so busy with work and life that we don’t take the time to do the prayer and study which he KNOWS he NEEDS to energize himself.  That is Wisdom.

These guys know something every one of us needs to know – the days are evil – we DON’T have all the time in the world, so we need to use what we have wisely.
Make the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil…  every one of us in on a journey – and that journey is to God.  Watch carefully how you live.  If I had one day left to live – what would God want me to do with it?  If I was freed from whatever holds me prisoner, how would I invest that time for God?
Be Wise.  Be intentional.
(P.S.  to see pictures of the Reward Day at prison, go to

http://paracleteceo.com/prison-ministry-garden  )