Time

Time

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.

AS THE CLOCK TICKED DOWN, my heart rate ticked up. The room was tense, the silence broken only by the occasional cough or scratching of pencils. It was Saturday morning, but it seemed like another school day. With just a few hours for us to complete hundreds of questions, the ACT test felt like a marathon. By the end, we were exhilarated and exhausted.

During those few hours of the ACT test, time sprinted by. Yet when we’re waiting our turn at the doctor’s office, time can pass agonizingly slowly. Though each of us has the same amount of time each day, we often think and talk about it the way we do money—how we spend it, how we don’t have enough. Time feels slippery.

Time is complex, and it’s also a little confusing. Did you know that, if someone is flying high in the air, and another person is on the ground, time passes more quickly for the person on the plane? Though the time difference is measured in less than a second, clocks run more quickly at higher altitudes because they experience a weaker gravitational force than clocks on the earth’s surface. Time is relative.

Like our understanding of time, our understanding of God is complex. After all, he is at once present with us and yet completely outside time’s boundaries. For him, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day (see 2 Peter 3:8). The concept seems paradoxical, but God is timeless.

Even though we may understand the temporary nature of today, there is still part of us that longs for the eternal. This spark is part of a larger story God has designed in which there is no beginning and no end, something—like God himself—that is beyond the boundaries of our present understanding. Though time often feels inconstant, God himself is eternal, everlasting, and infinite. Knowing that, we can take comfort in his presence no matter what.

Lord, thank you that though our time is finite, we serve an infinite God. Help us to see time the way you do. Amen.

-Kristin

One Good Step: How does your understanding of time influence the way you see God? How does it shape your view of eternity?