Last weekend I visited a place near the water and stayed for a couple of days. This beloved place of retreat has a wonderful sense of peace, covering, and wonder that I’ve returned to over the years. While there, I often get a sense that I could be in many different time periods other than my own, with its creaky wooden staircase and its decorative historical references. All these elements combine so that being there often comes with an intangible sense that anything is possible.
However, the huge, imposing grandfather clock has rung its familiar chime every hour on the hour year after year. I never have really loved being so acutely aware of the time. It often falls into one of two extremes; either feeling like the time is slipping away too quickly, or it’s dragging on so slowly that the chime, which makes some form of a sound every 15 minutes, starts to loom irritatingly large. Even with the place’s magical quality, the clock’s chiming made time feel like something I couldn’t have the illusion of escaping from, even on a restful vacation.
That is, until this trip. The grandfather clock rang its familiar tune, but this time, something was off. First, the hour chime missed the hour by quite a lot. Then the chime indicating which hour it was was comically off by several hours. Suddenly, it became a magical land in a new way. The fantasy of not being constrained by time was much easier to inhabit when I knew the chimes could be laughed at, even ignored altogether. I could look at the actual time whenever I chose to, instead of having the time imposed upon my conscious mind. Time became irrelevant, and it felt like freedom.
God Himself is not confined by time. He operates in eternity, which can be difficult for us humans, trained on the limitations of time, to understand. “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). Similarly, Peter reminds us that time is not so relevant in light of the eternal timeline of God, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:8-9). We have no control over time, how much we have, how fast or slow it comes and goes; we are completely dependent on God for the time that we have. Time can become so complicated the more we think about it, but there at the retreat this past weekend, I was reminded that all we are able to do is trust God with the time that He’s given us. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” (Psalm 62:8). With that broken grandfather clock chime, God provided me with a glimmer of the feeling of living in His realm. There He loosened the constraints of time that I am bound by here on this earth, and gave me a taste of eternity.
Even with how much is made of time, and how much time has been overemphasized in some ways, time is in fact a good thing. God made it, and the original clock was the moon and the sun, “He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting” (Psalm 104:19). It is good for us to have rhythms to our lives, to follow the rhythm set for the earth from the very Beginning.
But, it is also good for us to catch these glimpses of eternity, which is just as real as time. Jesus Himself tells us to focus on the things of heaven, set in eternity, where time no longer has an effect on us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). Our real treasures are the ones that are in the eternal realm; they’re the ones that last. The ones built on the fruits of the Spirit. Our time here in time is short, but it is enough for us because of Jesus. It is not something to dread or avoid, but to bring before Jesus and ask Him for wisdom.
May we ever look for God’s Truth and wonder, and find His order and respite in the midst of chaos.
“Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man!” (Psalm 89:47).
“For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:9-12).
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