The Stopwatch That Changed My Perspective
School mornings in my home are nothing short of orchestrated chaos. If parenting were an Olympic sport, the morning routine would be my qualifying event. Between shepherding my son to early band practice and ensuring my daughter makes it to the bus stop (preferably with matching shoes), my time management isn't just important—it's survival.
This particular morning presented a scheduling puzzle more complex than usual. Their timelines overlapped in a way that made it impossible for me to be in two places at once—a limitation of physics I'm still trying to overcome. My solution was simple: set an alarm on our spare cell phone to remind my youngest when to head to the bus.
As I fumbled through the unfamiliar device, swiping and tapping through a digital maze of apps, I finally located the clock icon. Success! Or so I thought. When I tapped it, instead of the alarm settings I expected, I found myself staring at a stopwatch—one that had been silently running in the background of our lives.
956 hours, 17 minutes, and 4 seconds.
The numbers continued their steady climb upward as I stood frozen, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Nearly a thousand hours of continuous measurement, quietly documenting time while we went about our lives, completely unaware.
In that moment of discovery, something shifted in my perspective. I called my son over, pointing at the screen with a mixture of awe and excitement. "Look how long this has been running!" The urgency of our morning schedule suddenly felt less important than this unexpected window into time's passage.
Some parents might have stuck to the schedule. But there are moments when wonder deserves precedence over punctuality. So we paused, both of us watching those seconds tick by, willingly "sacrificing timeliness on the altar of discovery and excitement."
Later, after capturing a screenshot of this moment, setting the actual alarm, and completing our morning duties, I found myself alone in the car, mind spinning with possibilities. 956 hours. What does that translate to in the language of life?
39.833 days, to be exact.
Just shy of 40 days—a number that wasn't lost on me. I'd recently been immersed in Dr. Benjamin Hardy's book "Slipstream," wrestling with his perspectives on time and how we move through it. The concept had felt abstract until that moment when those glowing digits on the phone screen made it tangible.
The Sacred Significance of 40 Days
Throughout Scripture, 40 days appears repeatedly as a period of transformation:
- Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, stripped of comfort but preparing for purpose.
- Noah witnessed 40 days of cleansing rain, the destruction necessary before new life could emerge.
- Moses remained 40 days on Mount Sinai, receiving divine instruction that would guide generations.
- The spies explored Canaan for 40 days, evaluating the promise that lay before them.
- Elijah journeyed 40 days to Mount Horeb, finding strength renewed in the silence.
What struck me wasn't just the numerical coincidence, but the realization that I had just lived through my own 40-day period of unconscious measurement. What had those days contained? What transformation had occurred while that stopwatch silently counted?
July—my birth month—had just passed. Looking back, I realized I'd approached each weekend with unusual intentionality, as if some part of me sensed the significance of this time period even before the stopwatch revealed it. I had entered what I can only describe as my "personal spiritual slipstream," a state of alignment where resistance falls away and movement forward feels both effortless and purposeful.
The Harvest of Intention
Those 956 hours had carried me through moments of clarity I hadn't fully appreciated until now. Conversations that shifted my thinking. Books that challenged my assumptions. Quiet mornings that restored my perspective. The gradual, almost imperceptible refining of my priorities and values.
I emerged from this period with a clearer vision of the quality of life I want to create and the specific steps needed to build it. Not all growth announces itself with fanfare—sometimes it whispers through the ordinary moments of our days until we have the wisdom to recognize it.
This is the beauty of transformation: gains don't always manifest as visible achievements. Sometimes they're spent in preparation, in the quiet cultivation of soil where future harvests will grow. The most significant changes often happen in the spaces between our conscious awareness, in the 956 hours we aren't watching the clock.
Your 40 Days
I wonder now: What might happen if we approached the next 40 days with deliberate intention? If we set our own timers—not to constrain ourselves but to create a container for transformation?
The invitation is simple but profound: What will your next 956 hours hold? What seeds might you plant? What wilderness might you navigate? What instructions might you receive? What promised land might you explore? What renewal might you find?
Set a timer. Not to race against it, but to honor the sacred potential of time passing. The transformation is already happening—the question is whether we're paying attention.
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