WATCHING a nine-year-old grandson playing an excellent game of cricket for the under-13s the other day prompted the idle thought “maybe Lord’s one day”. And then came the sobering thought “but I won’t be around to witness it”.

Over the south-east stand at the cricket ground is a weather vane with the figure of Old Father Time, a reminder that there will come a time in any match when the umpires will signal the end of play. No time then to make up for a dropped catch or a missed opportunity at the crease.

Old Father Time holds a scythe in his hands, at one time a common sight at this time of the year but nowadays seldom used. In our world the combine harvesters have mostly done their work by early September and the back-breaking task of the farm labourer with his scythe is a distant memory.But the seasons roll round in the same way as they always did, spring a little earlier and the fall of leaves a little later maybe, but the rhythm is maintained, year after year. We can’t imagine it ever being different.

However, Old Father Time’s scythe has an edge to it. Harvests may come and go but for the individual time is finite. My life is not regulated like the seasons, it definitely has an end point, and while for the young person it is so distant that it hardly registers, for the old it very definitely does. I now have to wonder whether I shall be around by the time the next harvest comes. The scythe’s edge may well have cut off my bit of time by then.

Time is a strange phenomenon. When we’re doing something interesting or exciting it races away but the run-up to some task we don’t relish seems to drag interminably. The ticking of the clock goes on exactly the same whichever is the case.

The historic cathedral clock at Wells may not mean a great deal to the people of Henley but it has told the time to passers-by since 1380. It is the world’s oldest continually working timepiece. Every week over that time someone has climbed the stairs to wind the great weights that keep it going but now with the retirement of the last member of five generations of the same family to do so it will no longer be the case. It is to be wound by an electric motor. Does time drive us or do we drive time?

To God, it is immaterial. “A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone” runs a famous hymn. Time is a dimension related to our life here. It is given to us to use to the full, not to waste. We are stewards of the earth, not its owners, and we have a responsibility for it not only to future generations but also to the Creator who has entrusted us with life.

“Time like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away” — and of course its daughters. There need be no fear of Father Time’s sharp-bladed scythe for the one who has given us life loves us like a good Father. I can trust him to make good provision, whether in time or out of it.