By Bill King
I had heard of jetlag, but honestly, I thought it was something someone had made up. I didn’t believe it was real until I experienced it myself after a really long Eastward flight. I think the problem is that my old body gets confused about what time it is and doesn’t know what to do. For instance, a flight from Atlanta to London takes around 8 hours. So, if I leave Atlanta at 10:00 p.m. and fly all night, I should arrive in London around 6:00 Eastern Time. The problem is that 6:00 Eastern Time is 11:00 in London. So, here’s the situation: I’ve been on an airplane for 8 hours, I haven’t slept a wink all night, and my body thinks it is time to go to bed when actually it is almost midday and time for lunch. I’m hungry, tired, sleepy, cranky, and ready to whip somebody, but I don’t actually know who. For years we have called this phenomenon jetlag, but I have come to realize that it is actually a big version of Daylight Saving Time!
This week, after changing our clocks ahead by one hour, I have felt like I’ve had a mild case of jet lag. I don’t want to get up on time, and I don’t want anyone to talk to me once I get up. I need 3 cups of coffee to get my blood circulating instead of my normal 2 cups. I have decided that this just isn’t fair! It isn’t fair to feel this bad when I haven’t gotten to travel anywhere. Flights east or west make me feel bad too, but at least I got to go somewhere. I get to see something different, hear someone speak another language or much faster English than this ole southern boy from Alabama speaks!
I would ask for my money back, but I didn’t pay anything. But then, I didn’t sign up for this either. I don’t mean to complain, but since I am, if I had my way, we would just leave the time the same year-round. Just think of all those hours we would save! Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Right, that’s my point, exactly!
The time change this year was especially tiring for me because I am pastoring again. Well, it was not so much that I am pastoring again as it was where I am pastoring. My church is located in East Central Alabama, near the town of Lanett. The church is so close to Georgia that we actually go through the edge of Georgia to get there. That section of our great state operates on Eastern Time rather than Central. I still live in Opelika, which is 30 minutes from the church and operates on Central Time. So, I got up 30 minutes early to allow for the drive, lost an hour on the time change, and lost another hour on Eastern Time. That meant that I didn’t lose one hour of sleep Saturday night, but I lost two and a half hours of sleep. No wonder I needed a nap Sunday afternoon! I am praying that one day we will pick a time, hopefully, the one we are now on, and stay with it all year.
Time is a manmade thing, anyway. God created days; man created hours. In the beginning, the evening and the morning were the first day, and so on and so forth for seven days. Time does not bother God as it does us. He is eternal and doesn’t have any watches, clocks, or calendars in heaven. One day, we won’t have any either. We also won’t have jetlag or Daylight Saving Time!
