I’m glad He is keeping time

Dear Friends,

Another year behind us, another year ahead. Does it ever seem to you that time just keeps going by faster and faster? For me, every phase of life seems to bring added responsibilities and demands. Do you ever feel the realization that you rarely have the time to accomplish all that you hoped for? What do you see as you look forward into the New Year?

Several years ago I asked that question in January, and the answer put me in crisis. I realized that time had become an enemy to me, a cruel taskmaster who demanded ever more from me and gave ever less. Time was a thief who stole opportunities and an opponent who needed to be wrestled to the ground with special “time management” skills and “time saving” devices. As I looked into the year ahead, I felt defeated even before I began.

Reflecting on what I should do, I wondered if it might help to examine my “theology” of time. Jesus had less years and a far greater task than I will ever have; yet he never complained that there was not enough time. What did he understand about God’s view of time that I was missing?

I grabbed my Bible and started in Genesis. The first chapter surprised me with the realization that a limitless God voluntarily worked within the limits of time. The words “it was evening and morning” are repeated on every day of creation, and this reality brought boundaries to his work. Since he evaluated the experience as “very good”, it must not have bothered him.

Trying to understand this further, I paged over to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, where the word “time” is found more often than in any other chapter of the Bible. There Solomon contends that every activity has a particular time, and that God “has made everything beautiful in its time.” Could it be that the purpose of time is to make things beautiful?

IImmediately I thought about a music score. The notes on a page give us two essential pieces of information – the tone and where that tone is designed to be played in time. When it rings out at the right time and for the right length of time the music is beautiful. If not – chaos and discord.

Could it be that God’s intention is not for us to cram as much activity into the least amount of time, but to let the limitations of time make our activity beautiful? Could it be that we are not playing our notes alone, but against the backdrop of a carefully composed symphony? If so, the most important question as we look into the New Year is not how many tasks are on our list, but how closely we are following the conductor.

I’m glad He is keeping time,

Dave Patty
President, Josiah Venture