Time

We are on week three of our GROW series and still looking at the "G". (If you missed the previous weeks you can find the sermons here and if you want the Bible Study guides you can find them here.) I am sitting here reading old commentaries and new blogs, contemplating the meaning of Giving - giving time, giving tithes, giving of myself - I find myself reflecting on the age old question of what is time... C.S. Lewis in his work Mere Christianity puts it this way:

“Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series—this arrangement of past, present, and future—is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do.”--p.146

Augustine puts it this way:

  

 “In the Eternal...nothing passes away, but the whole is simultaneously present. But no temporal process is wholly simultaneous...all time past is forced to move on by the incoming future...all the future follows from the past; and that all, past and future, is created and issues out of that which is forever present. Who will hold the heart of man that it may stand still and see how the eternity which always stands still is itself neither future nor past but expresses itself in the times that are future and past?”--Confessions

  

So how does this impact me? How does it impact you? Why is time important? Lewis says time is fleeting, Augustine says the past is forced on to allow for the future -

John Piper says it "better to lose your life than waste it" Are we wasting time? How do we waste time? So many questions so little time... 

Are you living in the past? Or are you finding yourself off dreaming of the future? I often find myself thinking of days past, whether wishing I could with present knowledge make a better past decision - or to stop an injustice, right a wrong, or even just to savor a moment missed. But am I wasting my time? I can't change the past, I can learn from past mistakes though and when I use those moments to lean on the Eternal  promises of God I find that instead of living in the past I am looking towards the future, the promise of spending Eternity in His presence. I don't believe God desires us to live in the past or in the future but in there here and now.

Isaiah 43:18-19 says:

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

Matthew 6:31-34 says:

"Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Psalm 118:24 says: "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

The word of God tells us to not dwell in the past, nor to be anxious about tomorrow but to live for Christ today, to seek first the Kingdom of God and let him take care of the rest. 

As with Augustine I am still left wondering what time is, but while I am wondering I am resting in the assurance that in my ignorance is God's wisdom, in my weakness is God's strength, in my brokenness is God's redemption. I am wondering but not worried, pondering but not perspiring, enjoying the journey that He is faithfully leading me on.

"And I confess to thee, O Lord, that I am still ignorant as to what time is."

Augustine of Hippo

Confessions: Book XI:25