Quiet Time Series: When the Clock Feels Like It’s Winning

I woke up late, again.

Friday morning was a blur of rushing—cooking while still half-dressed, darting between the kitchen and bathroom, racing the clock like it owed me something. I still made it to work on time, but the whole day carried that same breathless tempo. Meetings, conversations, even moments of connection felt like they were chasing the clock.

Later that afternoon, I took a short nap and dreamed of Jin—gentle, joyful, playful. For a moment, everything slowed down. And then the phone rang.

A coworker had died.

I didn’t know them personally, but still, grief cracked the dream wide open. It was a strange kind of whiplash—to move from laughter and lightness into death and disruption. That’s when a verse surfaced quietly in my spirit:

“My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.” — Psalm 31:15 (NIV)

This isn’t just poetic. It’s personal.

Not my calendar. Not my alarm clock. Not my coworker’s tragedy.

God’s hands. God’s time. God’s pacing.

But living like that—really trusting that truth—is a lot harder than quoting it.

⏳When Time Feels Like It’s Winning

There are days when time feels like a gift.

And there are days when it feels like a thief.

Time can blur joy, rush grief, and tighten your chest with pressure. You blink and a week’s gone. You pause and someone is gone. You sit down for five minutes and suddenly it’s midnight and you haven’t even caught your breath.

When David wrote Psalm 31, he wasn’t sipping coffee by candlelight. He was being pursued, literally hunted. And in the middle of that fear, he said:

“My times are in your hands…”

He didn’t mean, God, I hope You’ve got a calendar.

He meant: Even in crisis… even when the story feels out of my control… I believe You are still the keeper of my life’s unfolding.

📹 The Dream Interrupted

That verse hit harder after I woke from that short dream of Jin.

It wasn’t just a celebrity moment. It was symbolic: a trusted presence, asking me to lift him, laughing with me, giving me something lighthearted and human. Then—cut short by a death announcement.

That moment reminded me how easily time interrupts joy. But also how God’s timing contains all of it—the laughter, the interruption, the dream, the sorrow, and the soft landing that followed.

Maybe that dream was God’s way of reminding me that joy isn’t lost. It just gets buried under the noise.

Later that night, I watched Jin’s 2024 FESTA message—slow, tender, real. For an hour, I felt the rhythm of time soften again. Held. Not hijacked.

🔄 When You’re Not in Control

Sometimes we treat time like an enemy to outwit.

We strategize. We panic. We rush. We try to beat it.

But what if time isn’t the enemy?

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” — Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)

The problem isn’t time.

The problem is forgetting who holds it.

You are not late. You are not behind.

You are not stuck in someone else’s chaos.

You are held.

As Christine Caine once said:

“God is more interested in developing your character than in meeting your deadline.”

Even in delays, in detours, in the dreams that get interrupted—God is shaping something deeper.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…”— Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

💬 Reflection Questions

1. Where in your life are you trying to force time to move faster—or slower?

2. Are you measuring your worth based on how much you “get done” in a day?

3. What would it look like to live as if your time was truly in God’s hands—not yours, not theirs, not the world’s?

🧭 Final Thoughts

I didn’t plan for Friday to feel so emotionally loaded.

I didn’t plan to dream about joy and wake to death.

I didn’t plan to build a project, defend a director, or feel my body asking for rest.

But God knew the timing of it all.

And in His hands, even the most jarring transitions—rushed mornings, unexpected grief, unfinished stories—aren’t wasted. They’re woven.

So if your week felt offbeat, fragmented, or too fast for your soul to catch up…

Take a breath.

Look up.

Your time is not slipping away.

It’s being held.

The clock will keep ticking. But today, you don’t have to chase it.

You can rest in the hands that already hold it.

📩 Want to Go Deeper?

If today’s post resonated with you, take 5 minutes and journal your answers to the reflection questions above—or pray through them with Psalm 31 open in front of you.

You’re not running out of time.

You’re being led through it.

Soul Path Insights