Sunday, April 26, 2009

Why does time (seem to) go by so fast?

God and time are constant - we are not.

Have you ever asked the question - "My life is going by so fast - how do I slow it down? I think I said on another entry a few weeks ago that something like 10 days had gone by between my blog entries. I guess blogs are something new to many of us and perhaps don't have the priority that other events in life have. As a matter of fact I am sure of it!

Back to the question though - why does time seem to go by so fast and indeed seems to vary depending on where we are in life and in what activities we find ourselves involved?

I once heard a joke by someone that went somethig like: 'Life is like a toilet paper roll ... the closer to the end it gets, the faster it goes'."

Is it that we panic about our life if we are past a certain age whether it be "40" or "50" or "60" but when we are of lesser age we sense there is so much more to go that we don't even consider the end?

Or, is it that as we get older, we (as Christians) get more excited about 'the end'?

That would theologically be the best explanation. I don't think though may of us want the fleshly life to end until we have done all that we want to do. We know in our spirits as Christians that there is a lot more after our 'tents' are folded but find it hard to wish the end on faster.

I believe the reason that time seems to speed up the further we have walked our journey is that we have more milestones and stepping stones (see my first blog entry) to measure it's passage.

Indeed if we were to reflect upon and even record those major milestones in our life, we would probably see that life in pretty linear overall ... meaning the major events in our lives have fairly regular time gaps and spans.

But we have more of them to look at and so there are more steps or data points to see and it seems like so much more has happened way-back-when than is presently happening - thus the apparent non-linearity of the passage of time in our lives.

We sense this non-linearity because the accumulation of these events adds more clarity to the passing of our time in the immediate past as compared to the older past - not of course that time actually speeds up.

So how do we 'slow' this sense of the sppeed up of time? WE DON'T ... and we can't and we are not called to do that.

We are called to obedience to God through His word and His word clearly says "to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven." [Ecclesiastes 3:1].

Elsewhere God says in His Word; "For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall." [1 Peter 1:23-24]

We cannot do anything about the real time but we can 'slow down' the perceived passage of time by daily asking God to 'help us live THIS DAY for this day's sake, to reflect on yesterday only as He directs and to think of tomorrow only as a new gift to be opened ON THAT DAY!'

Another thought on this is not to not think of all that we can or cannot do or all that we have or have not done, but to think of HOW WE DID what we did and HOW WE WILL DO what we still have to do for Him.

Friday, April 10, 2009

It was a very good, Good Friday


"What an awesome eternal deal"

I can't believe that it has been nearly two weeks since I made any comments or shared anything on the blog!

Today has been a very good, Good Friday. I wondered early this morning while having breakfast with my wife - why do they call it Good Friday? I thought that would be an excellent question to ask someone who you didn't know but wanted to share the Gospel with during this time.

A little later it came to me ... it is called Good Friday (as far as I am concerned) because of the good (actually awesome) thing that Christ did for us on this day.

He as a sinless man was given a death sentance and was piled on with our sins from His Father but He gave us His righteousness in their place - and we gave Him nothing!

That has to be the best deal we have ever or will ever have! Check it out in 2 Corinthians 5:21!

We attended a wonderful Good Friday service at Harvest - probably the best and most heart-felt Good Friday service we have ever attended. After lunch we had a blessed opportunity to share the Good Friday message and sing a couple of 'Cross' songs with the seniors and retirees at Martindale Retirement home just across from us. That was a blessing for sure.

Directly afterwards we went over to New Life Church and watched their Easter Play with many other folks. It was great to see so many of our old friends and meet some new ones. A coworker and his wife were also there and really enjoyed the event.

In my opinion the fifteen-minute presentation that involved 10 people and that focussed only on the cross did more in my heart than the hour long stage presentation involving many dozens of people. The Lord can speak with very few words!

Tonight we are just relaxing and savouring the day - the good day - the very good, Good Friday!