Articles
God, Man, and Time
* * * * * * * * * * *
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Pet. 3:8)
My soul also is greatly troubled; but You, O Lord—how long? (Psa. 6:3)
* * * * * * * * * * *
To be human is to experience time. We live in a present that is bounded by a past, only fragments of which we remember, and a future which is hidden from our view. We cannot go back to the past to re-do old mistakes, nor can we peer forward into the future to guarantee making good decisions in the present. Moreover, the passage of time is a constant that we cannot control. All we can do is learn from the past, do the best we can in the moment, and hope for the best in the future.
Physicists struggle even to define time. Einstein discovered that time is relative to speed--that is, the faster we travel, the slower time moves (a principle that was used to good effect in the 2014 Christopher Nolan film Interstellar). But why does time exist at all? Can there even be an existence in the absence of time?
The Bible often mentions eternity. Bound as we are by the concept of time, we define eternity as "time without end." But what if we're looking at this all wrong? Recall the opening line of the old gospel song, "When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more" (based on the KJV rendering of Rev. 10:6). What if life in the hereafter is not defined by unending time, but by the absence of time?
I don't understand all the details, but I do know that God does not experience time the same way we do. If a thousand years is no different than one day to Him, then He has a different perspective on human life than we do. When in the midst of our suffering we cry out like the psalmist, "How long, O Lord?"--in other words, for what length of time will I have to endure this?--we should remember that God sees our experience differently. The time element isn't important to Him; what matters is what lies on the other side; and what lies on the other side is pleasant beyond our wildest dreams.
How long, O Lord? God's answer: "a little while longer" (Rev. 6:11). Let us make the most of the time we have been given, and look forward to the timeless bliss that lies beyond.
--David
