Time! A concept that guides our lives and can cause us to rejoice and to despair.

Rejoice, as we see it passing and we experience the seasons of life as we complete certain stages: school, college, an apprenticeship, a degree. A long awaited holiday, visiting relatives, receiving good news over a treatment that took some time! Kids growing up and experiencing life!

But on the other hand we Despair. As we experience the decay of our bodies, the disappointments that happen in life, the losses, the hardening of hearts and the counting down clock, to the day we die.

Time! It binds us and guide us. Something we are never actually satisfied with. We are always in need of more time or we are not giving it the importance it deserves.

The God outside time controls time

There never was a time when God was not. If God is outside time, every moment (millions of years, half an hour, 100 years ago, 200 years from now) all of it, is present to God all at once: right now. How do we comprehend that? Sometimes all we can do is marvel.

God controls time, but not like “Doctor Who”, a time lord jumping back and forth in time changing things and helping people. No. He is outside time and that means He is not bound by it and he sees, past, present and future all at once. He created all things and all things are His.

Let’s consider Psalm 90:

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. ² Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. ³ You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.” ⁴ A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. ⁵ Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning: ⁶ In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered. ⁷ We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.
⁸ You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
⁹ All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. ¹⁰ Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. ¹¹ If only we knew the power of your anger!  Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. ¹² Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

In this Psalm Moses is pointing out that God lives forever (verse 2) and how our life is short and limited (verses 2, 10). We can also see how God is outside time (verse 4). I guess it is quite easy for us to understand and see that God was there in the beginning, but to comprehend that the beginning and the end and every single moment in between are present to God all at once: mind blowing! This Psalm also shows us how finite we are (verses 5 and 6; 9 and 10) In the face of the contrast presented here Moses is asking God to teach us to number our days, to live well, so we can gain wisdom.

God appoints time

Ecclesiastes is a book all about living well in God’s world. In chapter 3:1-15 we see that the God who is outside time (living forever) can teach us, the ones who are living in time.

In this beautiful poem in the beginning of chapter 3 we are told that there is a time for everything in life and the writer is using polar opposites to highlight it. We must not forget the things that happen in between. In verse 2, for example, we see there is a time to be born (there is a time for the first laugh, the first steps, the first day of school, the first kiss, the first child, the holidays, the last day at work, the time for the nursing home) and a time to die. Get the idea? So for all the verses in this poem you need to think of all the things that happen in between as well. Also, we need to notice that life is so varied. There is time to kill, to heal, to weep, to laugh, to embrace and to refrain from embracing, time to love and time to hate. Most of the things that happen to us in this life are relational.

Our God is perfect, eternal, outside time but He is the One who controls time. This truth should help us in 3 different ways.

We can look at the past with peace

We shouldn’t live our lives based on nostalgia or regret. These two emotions are not bad but if fuelled they can become sinful. Nostalgia for a time in our lives when we were not sick or a loved one was still here, or when we had a better paid job, could cause us to be discontent with the life we have now. We could be stuck in that yearning for the good old days and miss the opportunities that God presents us with every day.

Regret on the other hand, may cause us to be stuck on the mistakes of the past and things we might have done. The missed job interview, the broken relationships, the wrong turns we took. Living in constant regret will rob us of the joy we can have now. If we are worried about the injustices and wrongs in the past we need to read Ecclesiastes 3 verse 15: “Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account”. Trust what the Bible tells us about God – He will bring the past to account. What is in our past is not out of reach of God. Remember, He sees it all at once.

We can look at the future without anxiety

We need to trust God for our future. We need to stop anticipating and coveting the next stage of our lives. The girl in primary school who wants to be doing her GCSEs, the teenager who wants to be a college student, the mum who wants her child to be out of nappies, the older woman who cannot wait for retirement. These things are not sinful on their own but if we live like that, we stop being content.

Sometimes we might be anxious because we fear a future we can’t control… what if I lose my job? What if my kids can’t go to college? What if the marriage never happens? What if the prognosis is not good? That stops us having joy now for what God has given us. We can stop that by being thankful. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11 tells us that “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end”. 

All things will be beautiful in its time. Not in our time, but in its time.

We can live today fully and wisely

We must use the time we are given well. Not being lazy or compulsively busy. A lazy person does not see God’s given time, the way He meant us to. There will always be more time. She procrastinates, misses deadlines and spends time without considering the costs. The compulsively busy person finds the time God has given her as inadequate. God has given us some time to be here on Earth, we are not eternal. We are very much bound by time.

When someone hears that they have cancer they become very aware of how brief life really is and what are the things and people, that really matter. This awareness of time ending might cause us to understand our plans are in God’s hands. “If He wills, tomorrow I will________” (fill in the blank).

How we live here can impact eternity

As we walk this earth in the time God has given us, it is important that we live in a way that will impact eternity. In verse 12 of Psalm 90 Moses prays: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. We already know God does not owe us anything, not even the 70 or 80 years mentioned in the Psalm. If He gives it to us it is out of His gracious and loving nature. It is a gift not an entitlement. Each day is a gift. Knowing that we will see the future “if the Lord wills” ought to change how we live each day. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11 says “He (God) has also set eternity in the human heart”, so we have this longing for eternity, but we cannot, at this side of Eden, have it.

Moses, at the end of Psalm 90 asks God, twice, that the years we live here would have an impact that would outlive us. ¹⁷ May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;  establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands. God is able to bring eternal results to our time bound efforts.

In Matthew 6 Jesus says: ¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. When we invest our time in what has eternal significance, we store up treasure in heaven. This side of heaven, the only investments with eternal significance are people.

How are we investing our time for eternity? How are we going to be remembered by our children? Grandchildren? Family members? work colleagues? Friends? Do they know how much we love our God? Can they see Jesus in us? In the way we live in our lives? Do we set aside our differences for the good of the Kingdom? Do we invest time telling those we love the most that God sent His Son to die for them and save them? Do we tell them that there is hope for eternity?

In our very busy lives, bound by time, may we desire to pray like Moses: Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. May God help us to invest in today for eternity.

God bless.

_{Photo by Ahmad Ossayli on Unsplash}