I was talking to a couple of different people just this weekend about it. A precious missionary couple who are filling in for our teacher who is out for a while, have been doing a tremendous work for quite a while and seeing progress. Slow progress, by some standards, but people are coming to Jesus. But the spirit worshiping/fearing culture is so deeply ingrained in their way of life, that while their souls are redeemed, their way of living is not reflective of the changed inner man. The next generation, however, shows signs of new life. Literally and spiritually. The old superstitions and spiritual practices are diminishing with time and teaching. It has been years and years of pouring into these people to see the seeds develop into seedlings. Will these beautiful workers be around to see fruit bearing trees?
We measure our progress in time spent. I was having a conversation with my 17-year-old granddaughter who has aspirations to be a writer, much as I do. We were discussing the path to being published, and the magnitude of work outside of actually writing a book. She is discovering the years of hard work and the path she has to navigate. It looks different than mine. I mentioned to her that I will navigate it slightly different than she will, considering that I have less time to accomplish my goal. She looked at me funny, and I just smiled, nodded and said, "It's true. Sorry." For her the years stretch out endlessly in front of her, slow moving, and far reaching. For me, I feel as if the pages of the calendar are being flipped at an alarming rate. My husband and I were having that conversation this morning. The 'where is time going' conversation. Looking at his schedule, all that he is needing to get done, his obligations, the phone messages and texts asking for more, then his calendar. Not a calendar stretching with blank spots waiting to be filled, but with spots filled, and him searching for some blank spots. The hardest part was realizing we were looking at spots six weeks away. Time.
I am reminded of how I started my next novel:
Time is a strange thing. When you are a child waiting for something as momentous as Christmas morning, it drags its feet as if it were stuck in fast drying cement, struggling to free itself before it becomes one with the greedy sludge. When you are old, it streaks by like leaves caught in the winds of a howling summer southern hurricane. Blurring your vision until you are dizzy trying to catch the details of one of the thousands of tiny particles whipping by at a furious pace.
That is how we feel here. In time. But have you ever stopped to consider how God thinks of time? We know that His Word tells us that "a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as a day." (2 Peter 3:8-10) What exactly does that mean? I believe that is because God dwells in Eternity. In eternity there is no measure of time. No ticking away of minutes, hours, day or years. Time is only a reality here, on earth, in the lifetime of mankind. Once we too enter into Eternity there will be no measure of time, or the passing of it.
I have a vivid memory of being a child. I was living with my grandparents, and I was swinging on the swing set that my dad had bought for us. Based on these two facts, I can place my age at around five years old. At most six, but I doubt it. I can remember swinging on the swing and singing. (I did that a lot.) We must have had a lesson in Sunday School, or else a sermon in church about God being eternal. His having no beginning and no end. I clearly remember mulling that over in my tiny little brain. God never beginning. Always, always, always being there. Just being. And never ever, ever ending. For some reason, that scared me. Like I felt scuba diving one time when John and I looked away from the wall we were diving next to, and saw the depth of the ocean, where you could see out and down, and see no end in sight and no bottom. I felt the same then. As a small child, I was so overwhelmed by the feeling, that I jumped from the swing and ran into the house to be with my Grandmother. I needed the safety and security of her arms, her rocking chair. It was solid, safe. The wall while scuba diving was the same. It was an anchor, a way to feel secure.
Maybe time is that for us. Something solid and measurable for our tiny little brains. God is too big, eternity too vast for us to comprehend. So he gave us hours, days, and years. So that we could have something to hold on to until He brought us to Him to hold safely. I'm okay with that. I just kind of wish it didn't go so fast sometimes. Oh, and that man would stop messing with it. It's fine where it is right now.
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