Os Guinness - Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Times

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
ivpress.com

2019 by Os Guinness

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InterVarsity Press is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates.

and part of chapter 6 were originally published in Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance (Baker 2003).

Cover design and image composite: David Fassett
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ISBN 978-0-8308-4988-8 (digital)

ISBN 978-0-8308-4581-1 (print)

This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

DOM

and to CJ,

With love, admiration,

a fierce pride,

and a strong hope

Teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven

A time to give birth and a time to die;

A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

A time to kill and a time to heal;

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to weep and a time to laugh.

A time to mourn and a time to dance.

A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

A time to search and a time to give up as lost;

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;

A time to be silent and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate;

A time for war and a time for peace.

Time is a created thing. To say I dont have time,

is like saying, I dont want to.

Time was pastthou canst it not recall. Time is thou hast

employ thy portion small. Time future is not, and may never be. Time present is the only time for thee.

Do not put your work off till tomorrow or the day after, for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn.

Time will reveal everything. It is a babbler,

and speaks even when not asked.

Live for today; plan for tomorrow; remember yesterday.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays,

and comparing existing things to the flow of a river,

he says you could not step twice into the same river.

Socrates: Theres nothing I like better, Cephalus, than talking with

old men. I see them as travellers who have gone ahead on a road we too may have to go, and we ought to find out what its likerough and difficult or smooth and easy.

As you, so I, so everyone.

Can anything be more ridiculous than a traveller needing more provisions the closer he is to his destination?

I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.

But God said to him, You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Be wise, strain the wine and cut back long hope into a small space. Even as we speak, envious time flies past. Seize the day [carpe diem] and leave as little as possible for tomorrow.

There is nothing the busy man is less busy with than living....

[The wise man] plans out every day as if it were his last....

It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much.... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill-provided but use what we have wastefully.

How trivial life is: yesterday a drop of semen, today a mummy or ashes.

Spend therefore these fleeting moments as Nature would have you

spend them, and then go to your rest with a good grace, as an olive

falls in season, with a blessing for the earth that bore it and a

thanksgiving to the tree that gave it life.... Perfection of character

is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.

How can the past and the future be, when the past

no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present,

if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.

The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.

Then to the lip of this poor earthen Urn

I leaned, the Secret of my Life to learn:

And Lip to Lip it murmuredWhile you live

Drink!for, once dead, you never shall return.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the

flood leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.