HOURGLASS
When time tightens… truth shows up
HOURGLASS
When time tightens… truth shows up
My wife captured this moment quietly on our patio while I was in prayer. I didn’t know she had taken the photo. But when I saw it later, I remembered exactly where I was — not just physically, but spiritually. Fully present. Fully surrendered. Completely still before God. It wasn’t staged. It wasn’t planned. It was just a moment… that became a mirror.
There are moments you don’t plan for…
moments you don’t stage…
moments you don’t even know are happening—
until you see them later.
DEDICATION
To the Holy Spirit — who, in His perfect timing, got my attention and changed the course of my life… and how I now see the sand passing through the apex.
To the adventures — and the lessons found within them… that revealed time as one of God’s most precious gifts, and the choices we make with it as the second.
To my wife — for her constant encouragement, and for walking beside me as we learn to spend our time wisely together… paying attention to the grains of sand in our hourglass and our marriage.
And to the readers — those who feel something stirring, those who are searching, and those who are being reminded… this is for you.
SCRIPTURE
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” — Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)
“When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” — Psalm 61:2 (NKJV)
“But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” — Job 23:10 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
She didn’t say anything.
She just picked up the camera.
I was on the patio. Eyes closed. Hands folded.
Somewhere between a conversation with God and a surrender I didn’t have words for yet.
I didn’t know the shutter clicked.
I didn’t know the moment existed outside of me until I saw the photo later.
And when I did—
I didn’t recognize the stillness.
Not because it was foreign.
Because it was rare.
THE STORY
I’ve spent years photographing men in prayer.
But this time…
It was me.
The man who is always behind the camera.
On the other side of it.
And I almost didn’t know what to do with that.
I wasn’t performing. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t trying.
I was just there.
Fully present. Fully surrendered.
And if I’m honest…
I don’t live there enough.
THE MOMENT
I remember the days of RV’ing and boating with my kids.
I spent hours waxing the boat… prepping everything… planning every detail for the weekend.
Then we’d come home… and I’d spend days cleaning it all up. Putting everything away. Getting it ready to do it all again.
And the truth is—
I spent more time preparing for the experience… than actually living it.
It was still good. Still fun.
But if I’m honest…
I missed more than I realized.
I had a friend who did it different.
He’d grab a small bag — a t-shirt, shorts, sandals, a chair — and that was it.
One load of laundry when he got home. Done.
What I didn’t know at the time was why.
He’d already lived at full speed. Businesses. Schedules. Always somewhere to be. Always something that needed him more than home did.
Until his wife sat down across from him and told him she was done.
Not angry.
Just gone.
He hadn’t been home long enough for her to even stay mad.
That conversation changed him.
He didn’t just start packing lighter.
He started living differently.
And by the grace of God —
He caught it in time.
I thought about that man often.
And somewhere in my own boat prep…
I should have heard it louder than I did.
There is a phrase etched in my spirit:
Hourglass Apex.
It’s the narrowest point. The tightest place.
Where time, pressure, and purpose collide.
We all pass through it eventually.
That place where life tightens… choices become fewer… noise fades… and clarity sharpens.
The comfortable won’t fit through.
The unnecessary falls away.
It’s where God says — just Me now. Follow Me through.
God didn’t put you in the pressure to crush you.
He put you there to form you.
THE TURN
Time.
We all get 24 hours.
The same amount…
until we don’t.
And so much of it slips right through our hands—
unnoticed… unaccounted for…
until we’re reaching for what’s left.
The hourglass doesn’t negotiate.
It doesn’t pause for your plans.
It doesn’t wait for you to feel ready.
It just narrows.
And the question isn’t only how much sand is left.
The question is what’s being formed while it falls.
THE DRIFT
You have time.
You’ll get to it.
You’ll slow down later.
You’ll be more present next season.
That voice sounds reasonable.
It sounds responsible.
It sounds like life.
It isn’t.
I know.
Because I believed it. For years.
THE REFLECTION
I almost missed it.
Time with my kids.
Thank God I saw it when I did.
But now?
That sand looks different.
They’re living their own lives now. Spending their time… where they choose.
And I feel the weight of it.
There’s a season I don’t talk about much.
Twelve surgeries. Four years. More than four hundred nights in a leather recliner.
Not in a hospital.
In my own home.
About 45 feet from the bedroom.
The double doors stayed open — both of them — every single night.
Because Marty needed to hear me if I called out.
She would lay across that bed, both sides of it, and sleep light.
Listening for me.
Night after night after night.
I’d sit in that chair in the dark — pillows arranged just right, a dog on my feet, another one tucked in beside me — and I’d ask myself the same question every time.
Am I ever going to return to my wife’s side?
When you marry someone, you marry them to be with them.
To sleep next to them. To reach over in the dark and know they’re there.
And here I was.
Forty-five feet away.
Night after night.
For hundreds of days.
That was the weight of time I never saw coming.
But God used that chair.
He pressed me the way He pressed Job.
Not to punish me.
Not to break me.
But to show me something I could not learn any other way.
Be still. And listen for My voice.
I think about what it means to sharpen a blade.
You work one side until the edge begins to roll — the bur forms on the other side.
Then you flip it.
Work the other side until that bur rolls back.
Then you knock the bur off entirely.
And what’s left is a sharp, clean edge.
That’s what those nights were.
That’s what those years were.
God sharpening one side of me, rolling the bur over, flipping me, working the other side.
Over and over.
Season after season.
Pressing. Refining. Pressing again.
I used to wonder — why won’t this trial end?
Now I understand.
The sharpening isn’t the punishment.
The sharpening is the gift.
I walk past that recliner now, and I almost cringe.
I can’t imagine sleeping in it again.
But I wouldn’t trade what God built in me while I sat there.
I saw this same truth in my father.
January 3rd — he was told he had cancer.
March 23rd — he was gone.
Seventy-nine days.
Near the end, he told me he wasn’t finished. That he wished he had done more.
I didn’t understand it then.
I do now.
I’ve never seen a tombstone that says:
I wish I had watched more TV.
I wish I had spent more time scrolling.
But I have seen the weight of:
I wish I had more time.
And somewhere in all of that…
something shifted in me.
Not just how I see time — but how I hold it.
Because one day…
God will flip my hourglass.
And when He does…
Time will no longer have a say.
WALKAWAY LINE
Time is not what you have… it’s what you’re spending.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What are you spending your time on right now… that won’t matter when your sand runs out?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Slow me down enough to see what matters. Strip away what doesn’t belong in the narrow place. Teach me to spend my time with intention, not distraction. Let the pressure of the sharpening not be wasted — may it form me into what You designed. Refine my heart for what lasts and keep me anchored in You through every season.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~