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Good morning The clocks go forward tonight. British summer time begins. Days which have been lengthening since the end of December suddenly seem much brighter and more hopeful as nature erupts all around us. Time is a strange thing. In our younger years it seems to go much more slowly. But as we get older, the opposite is true. Sheila Cassidy, famous for her work with the Hospice movement, suggests we only deliberately waste time with the people we love because the rest of it is so precious. Whatever the levels of life expectancy, most of us have things we want to do. Deciding when the right time is to say or do anything is always subjective. Various competing factors come into play. For instance, when is the right time to change interest rates? There are many questions like this which the news agenda forces on both our personal and national life as to whether or when we should act at all. Of course it often becomes obvious in hindsight whether the timing was right or wrong. Not surprisingly, time plays a significant role in theology. In the Hebrew Scriptures time is generally perceived as a gift from God to be used wisely. Believers are challenged to focus on the right use of time. The warning is always that the faithful become preoccupied and distracted, failing to seize the moment. The most famous biblical passage about time is in the Book of Ecclesiastes. The author writes poetically that there is a time for everything – even when we lament what’s happening in our lives. Every second still counts. Every moment remains an opportunity. The Christian tradition, based on the teachings of Jesus, also has a lot to say about time. Confirming Jesus’s plea that we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow, because there is enough to think about today, St James agrees, arguing in his letter that we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. That, however, doesn’t mean that the past and the future do not also frame our lives. Isaac Watt’s great hymn O God our Help in ages past is sung on many great national occasions. It’s a celebration of how our shared lives are always a combination of the past, the present and the future. Time is described as an ever-rolling stream - with all its twists and turns. We have no alternative but to go with the flow, focussing on the present, encouraged to use our time well and wisely. Surely a more than appropriate challenge for today as those clocks go forward.