The 'Mystery' of Time and Learning to Enjoy It

When I was growing up, one family of comments regularly made by my parents, grandparents, and other elders was sure to cause me to roll my eyes all the way to the back of my head.

It included such gems as these:

“Time sure does go by, doesn’t it?”

Or, “You certainly are growing up.”

Or, “It’s amazing that you’re already seven [or ten, or fifteen, or twenty].”

These comments and others like them were all delivered with the same sense of wonder and mystification that must have been felt by the Israelites when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with that peculiar glow on his face...Or the same disbelief that Chicago Cubs fans would feel today if you told them that finally, in the Year 2163, their team would win a World Series.

It seemed to me the most obvious thing in the world that time went by and that people aged. I thought a bit disdainfully that my elders’ comments had all the profundity of saying that water is wet. “Of course, time moves on and kids grow up,” I thought. “It’s been going on for generations.” Duh!

All I had to do was consider the wrinkled, blue-haired high school classmates of my grandmother, who she still called “Girls.” Clearly, they must have lived a long while before I hit the scene, all the way back to the ancient age when they really were girls. There was no mystery about the passage of time to me. Why was it such a surprise to my elders?

But lately, I’ve begun to think that all those comments weren’t so dumb after all.

Time does go by...and quickly.

Children grow up...and faster than I did, it seems.

Where did the time go? I’m surprised that children I’ve baptized are coming into their early twenties. Children I instructed in Confirmation classes are in college or graduated, in military service, or generally, just living their adult lives. A young man from our church, once involved in our youth group, has been helping me teach Confirmation this year. And he’s twenty-seven, married, about to become a father.

Of course, as deeply as I care about the people of the two churches I’ve served as a pastor these past twenty-one years, the passage of time hits me particularly forcefully when I consider my wife and kids. By now, I’ve been married almost thirty-one years.

Our son, who will be 24 in a few months, is graduating from college next week and is working for a time before heading off to graduate school. He’s seeing a wonderful young woman who has been visiting with us for the past two days and in spite of her leaving only a few hours ago, he just told me, “I miss her.”

Our daughter, sweet and independent-minded, is twenty, a college sophomore who, last year, spent eight months working with the Walt Disney World College program for which she now acts as a campus representative. In June, she and a fine young man from Virginia will be married. They’re considering moving to Florida, which I think would be a good thing for them to do.

But I can hardly believe it. The time surely has gone by quickly.

Some of the writers of the Bible noticed time’s rapid passage and wrote about it. Almost all who did so seemed to take a clear-eyed inventory of their own advancing years and the implications of that, followed by a decision about how they would live through whatever time they had. The prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament is representative of this when he writes, “All people are grass...The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

Here, the prophet was making a bold decision, embodying the great nevertheless of faith. “Time is going by,” he said, “but I’m going to throw in with God. I know that my life here will ebb to an end. But I stand with the God Whose word made the world and Who’ll be standing long after the world has disappeared,”

James Taylor once sang, “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” That’s true as far as it goes, I think. But much depends on how you enjoy the passage of time.

We can try to enjoy it by taking an “eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we die” approach. The problem with that is it’s marked by a desperation and selfishness that in ultimately, not enjoyable. No matter how happy we may deem ourselves in this life style, we still end up dead and separated from God.

Or we can throw in with the God we know through Jesus Christ, the God Who will give life and purpose and true joy to our time and to our eternity. This is a truly joyful life that lasts forever.

I’ve tried living life both ways. And to be honest, my life with Christ these past twenty-seven years or so hasn’t been marked by constancy. I’ve flirted with walking away from God, momentarily caving into the allurements of life lived apart from God. Followers of Christ are like recovering alcoholics: For as long as we live here on earth, we’re apt to “fall off the wagon” or fight the cravings to do so. But God is faithful and constant.

He remembers, as the Old Testament says, that we are dust.

He’s slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Time may go by quickly. But God is in a relationship with us for the long haul. We just have to ask Him to let us walk with Him each day.

I’ve found that having Him around makes the passage of time not only easier to bear, but also more purposeful, more joyful.