TIME!!!

Time

A thought was posed to me tonight. The thought was a depressing analysis of time and our relation to it. The thought viewed time as a vacuum in our lives that causes great pains and frustration to fill. It is a cynical view, a view I’m sure I’ve shared in the past.

However, I got thinking about time and it’s actual nature.

I’ve come to a conclusion and a personal opinion that time is only an intimidating void when we struggle to fill it, and perhaps the very outlook of “having to fill it” is where the problem originates in the first place. I pose the question therefore that maybe time is not a void (an absence of a thing,) but rather it itself is in fact existent within reality. (a thing.) Like a vacuum is an absence of air, time is the absence of reality in this view point. This view point is nihilistic, and not a Christian perspective then. If the bible clearly states that God Himself is the maker of not only the Universe, but this thing we call “time”, and our lives, then we can not view time as a nonexistent entity. (That statement within itself is contradictory.) God is real. Everything originates from God, you can not add to Him, nor take away.
With that established, God creates. He creates existence. He IS existence. To state He made a thing to the contrary of His being is not only unbiblical, but is against the very concept of God.

So, we have established time is a thing. What do we make of it?
When we were viewing time as a void to be filled, what we were really thinking of was an empty vessel; like a cup or vase, waiting to be filled with water. Now, it is in my opinion that this is not a healthy view of time and our life’s relation to it. If our very view of our time is that of an empty vessel, then I have to admit that our lives themselves are very empty.

Now, here is what I believe time to be: time rather than being that empty cup waiting for water; time is in fact the water. Like Marcus Aurelius said in his meditations “Time is like a steam of water, one current comes after the other, then is swept away, then another current arrives to replace it, only to be swept to sea as well. Such is time just as fleeting.”

Time is a thing, and it will escape us.
In my opinion, a man who sits and seeks out things to fill his time with is not partaking in a purposeful life. That man is a great defeatist, just simply looking for things to do to keep him occupied until his death. Like a loyal wife reading a magazine to past the hours before her husband returns home for dinner, so is a man that waits for death akin to death, and it is death‘s meal they partake of. And, a man who at his very essence is akin to death is not only already dead, but He is not akin to God. If God is akin to life, and if God is Life, how can one call themselves a child, akin to God, if he himself is akin to death? I can not rationalize this.

There is few things I find more upsetting in this life than men who have chosen to die 10-20- ever 60 years before his own funeral.

I firmly believe there is a great sin in the slothful-wastefulness of the potential God has imbued to human life. I believe God that has given us life, and I believe as the bible teaches, He created for us a constraint to live in, that we formally call “Earthy time“. (or a plane of existence, call it what you will. ) God has also in that token given time particular unique qualities, and those qualities have a purpose.

God has made time with a past; perhaps so we may be reflective? God has made time with a future; perhaps so we may be hopeful? God has made time with a present; perhaps so we may live in it? And furthermore, He has made time fleeting; perhaps so we may chase it?
God made time with qualities that serve great purposes, so perhaps a man who ties himself to the perspective of “purposeful time” is also tying himself to the perspective of a “purposeful life.”

The concept of a purposeful life is very uniquely Christian in the concept that if one is to confess they submit to Christ, believe He is God, their Savior and kinsmen, then they are agreeing to be transformed by this Christ. They are agreeing to Christ’s principles, thus, they are agreeing to serve God’s purposes, and not pride. Any Christian who knows their bible will tell you that God’s purposes will be carried out whether or not you are driven to complete them. Any Christian also knows that if you claim to be a Christian and are not bearing the fruit of that confession, then the confession itself is suspect.
Point blank: Christians are not asked, but ordered to serve a real purpose in life. They are not asked to live, they are given life. It is written within the Law of God that His children live purposeful existences. You see, a life which seeks purpose does not seek to fill time, but it seeks to use it-- master it, dominate it, and maybe also it is depressed by the prospect that time might run thin when there is still much work to be done.

Christ’s dying words, “It is done!” Christ’s last breath was a statement of how we should live our lives; we should be pursuing our goals even to, and with, our dying breath. In that same turn, Christ’s resurrection spoke of something greater. It spoke of real purposeful living; it is a living that bleeds purpose beyond the grave. Runners run past the tape, not to the tape-- a life that respects time drags time with it to the crypt, and beyond.

Therefore, I pose a final question:
Perhaps the old men we admire, who fill their lives with tasks are not doing so to past the time before they expire? Perhaps they are feeling the creaks in their backs, and the slipping of their memories and are afraid? Perhaps they are afraid that the days have few to little hours, and the hours have fewer minutes than they did when they were young? Perhaps it isn’t boredom they fight against, but time fleeing them before they are done with it.