Highlights from Chapter 4 – “Where Did All Our Time Go?”

“I showed up, but I wasn’t present.” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 46). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

“Yet our problem with time runs much deeper than learning to master our calendar and fend off time bandits. Ultimately, our problem with time does not lie outside of us; it’s in us. We’re running out of time because we’re thinking, feeling, and living out of time. In a word, we’re absent.” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 51). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

“And the only way to solve our problem is to reenter time and “recover the rhythm and order of man’s real nature” as we live within the “appointed times” that God has determined for each of us (see Acts 17:26).11 This is what I call timefulness, and I’ll spend the next several chapters unpacking what it entails.12” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 51). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Personal Reflection – I remember those days in elementary school when the teacher would call the roll and the expected response was “Here,” or “Present.” But what is true physically isn’t necessarily true spiritually, emotionally, or relationally. We can be physically “here,” but a million miles away, robbing God and others of our love and attention. How significant this is all relationships, but especially in marriage and parenting. I am looking forward to learning more about this concept of timefulness in the chapters to come.