Five Minutes
Frances Havergal was a young girl when she began writing poems – she had a real gift for it. Her family saw in her a great potential, and at one point she was asked by her brother-in-law to start teaching his children, so that they might also grow up with a good education – in those days there weren’t school systems like we have in place today.
A paragraph caught my attention here in the book. It said this: “Even here she managed to increase her knowledge. While the children washed their hands for dinner after their morning walk, she learnt all the Italian verbs, for she could be ready in five minutes less time than they, and she regularly used that five minutes for the verbs.”
Utilize Spare Moments
When she had five minutes to spare, Havergal used it for growth and knowledge. This is quite different to the way we tend to do things today. In our time, when we have a few minutes to spare, we normally pick up our phones and essentially waste away the extra time we have. I can’t even imagine the amount of time I have wasted in my life, scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, YouTube, looking for some silly picture or video to bring me a little laugh for the moment.
Havergal used the little five-minute window she had to learn a skill. I think this is wise! How much richer would we be if we spent less time scrolling and more time learning?
More so, what about using that time for prayer? We often talk about how we should “pray without ceasing”, as Paul instructed us. Well, if we have two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes in between the things we do, maybe these should be moments for prayer?
Embrace Meaningful Moments
Now this is not to say that we never rest. Of course we need to take time to be still and stop just filling our minds with more.
But still, there are many moments in our days when we could turn our attention to God, or to learning something or growing in some way, instead of just wasting it away on our phones.
Five minutes can go a long way! Why not try spending your short moments of nothing with prayer or Bible reading, and see how much more intimate with God your life becomes?
Havergal used her little gaps with wisdom, let us do the same.
