Time

I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.

Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I have cried out to you; but let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in the grave. Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous.

How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you. In the shelter of your presence you hide them from the intrigues of men; in your dwelling you keep them safe from accusing tongues.

Praise be to the LORD, for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city. In my alarm I said, "I am cut off from your sight!" Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.

Love the LORD, all his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD (Psalm 31).

The older I get, the more I find that I dislike time.  Time is a thief—it steals things that were precious to me.  Time has taken away my father and my grandparents.  Time has stolen some of my energy.  And time is selective—it has stolen my dark hair, but has left me with the gray!

Time also gives me things that I don’t want.  It has given me eyeglasses.  It has given me aching joints.  Time has given me year after year of bad news seen on TV, read in the paper, and heard over the phone.  Time steals your joys and replaces them with disappointments.

Have you ever noticed how unfair time is?  When you are sick with the flu, time slows to a crawl—a minute feels like an hour.  When you are lying in bed afraid of a storm, the clock hardly seems to move.  When you are lonely, the phone never seems to ring.  When you are bored, everything around you slows to a crawl.

But time can go by very quickly when you don’t want it to.  When you have a deadline at work, the clock seems to speed up.  When you’re having a good time with friends, it’s amazing how fast time gets away from you.  When you’re enjoying a carnival ride or an ice cream cone, the pleasure is over before you are satisfied.  Periods of comfortable relaxation never seem to last for very long before they are interrupted by a phone call or something that needs to be done.

Time: it takes what we don’t want to lose, it gives what we don’t want to receive, it drags through times of misery and dashes by when we’re having fun.  It’s no wonder that I don’t like time very much.

But maybe I’m being too negative.  After all, time can be our friend, too.  Time allows you to watch your children grow up; time also lets you meet and enjoy your grandchildren.  Time lets you see the payoff of gardening, as you set the dinner table with cut flowers and serve the produce that you raised.  Time gives you the satisfaction of seeing goals achieved and projects completed.  Time gives you the ability to put the problems of life into perspective.  It gives you comfort by letting old pains fade away.  Time gives you the opportunity to grow closer to your loved ones, deepening the bonds of trust and understanding.  Time lets love grow.  So maybe time isn’t all bad, after all.

Then again, time brings with it two things that are absolutely terrifying—death and eternal judgment.  Every year that passes brings us closer to the end of life.  A day is coming when you will leave all of your loved ones behind.  There will be books you didn’t get to finish, projects that you will never bring to completion.  There will be no more chances to make up with someone that you’ve hurt.  There will be places you wanted to visit that you’ll never get to see. 

As sad as death is, what comes after is truly terrifying.  Your soul will stand before God for judgment.  You won’t even be able to look at Him, because His glory is absolutely blinding.  He will open the book of your life, a detailed record of your thoughts, words and deeds.  He will review this account of every opportunity you wasted, every evil thought that’s crossed your mind, every hurtful word that’s come from your mouth.  Then He will look into your heart for a compelling reason to let you into heaven.  If He doesn’t find what He’s looking for, you will be thrown into hell, a place of suffering with no hope of relief, of loneliness with no trace of love. 

Time leads to death and judgment—no wonder people try everything they can think of to slow the passage of years.

But thanks to God, time can be our friend.  God gives us time to admit our sins and ask Jesus for His forgiveness.  God gives us time to serve Him.  God sends us His Spirit to give us wisdom and patience so we can use our time productively, honoring God and showing His love to our neighbors.  God fills our lives with good things great and small, so that every day we might find times of pleasure and contentment. 

It all comes down to trust.  If we trust in Christ as our Savior and Friend, we don’t have to fear the ticking of the clock.  When we trust God, we are confident that He is in charge of time.  He set the date and place you were born; Paul says, From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live (Acts 17:26).  God can and does reach into this world and suspends the laws of nature to take care of you—we call these intrusions ‘miracles.’  During a prolonged battle with the Amorites, God stopped the sun from moving through the sky until Joshua finally won the battle.  When king Hezekiah begged God to spare him from an early death, the Lord added 15 years to his life and showed proof of His power over time by causing the shadows cast by the sun to move backwards.  God created time and He is its undisputed master.

The most terrifying aspect of time is the death and judgment that it brings.  But God has power over these things too.  We use up much of our time on things that are wasteful and harmful.  Our thoughts are preoccupied with selfish desires and hostility towards others.  Our words tear down more often than they build up.  We squander opportunities to show love, placing our comfort (and need for enjoyment) as of first importance.  And so we anger God and deserve His wrath, because He created us to love Him and each other with all that we are and have. 

Since God is love, He sent His Son Jesus to suffer for our sins—suffer all the punishment that our dark ways deserved.  Jesus’ suffering resulted in the unthinkable—God’s own Son died and was buried!  But Christ did not spend much time in the grave—not even three full days.  On the third day He rose from the dead, never to die again.  He spent 40 more days with His disciples, completing their training—then He returned to heaven.

Because of Christ, we don’t have to fear the day when time brings life to an end.  Since Jesus rose from the grave, we know that death is only a temporary thing.  Jesus said that a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned (John 5:28-29). 

Because of Jesus, we don’t have to fear standing before God in judgment.  Because He died for you, Jesus has earned the authority to forgive your sins.  All you have to do is throw yourself at His feet, own up to your mistakes, and ask Him for the gift of mercy.  John writes, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). 

For God, forgiving is forgetting.  In Psalm 103 we are told, He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.  Through Jeremiah God promised, I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more (chapter 31).

When you stand before God for judgment, He will open the record book of your life.  If you have been forgiven by Jesus, many of those pages will be blank.  Every record of sin will be erased, leaving only good things recorded.  Then the Lord will look into your heart, searching for a compelling reason to bring you into heaven.  If you are a Christian, He will find what He is looking for—faith that trusts in Jesus.  Hebrews chapter 11 says, without faith, it is impossible to please God.  With faith in your heart and your sins erased by Jesus, God will throw open the gates of paradise and welcome you into His marvelous kingdom.

Heaven is a place where time does not exist.  I’ve often wondered what that could be like.  Let me share a couple of thoughts.  Have you ever been in a zone where you were so focused on something that you weren’t aware of time going by?  Maybe eternity is like that.  Have you ever been relaxing under the sun or in bed, perfectly content and comfortable, with no thoughts of the past or what needs to be done in the next few hours?  I wonder if eternity is like that, an endless “now” that isn’t spoiled by feelings of guilt or worries about the future. 

Our Lord is the master of time—He says, I am the A and the Z, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Revelation 22:13).  Our times are in His hands.  So there’s no point in worrying about the passage of time; Jesus said, who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:27) Time doesn’t have to be our enemy.  If you trust that Jesus is in control, then time can be your friend.  Embrace each new day as a gift from God, and do your best to look for the good in it.