Time

In his new song, "Walking Far From Home," Iron & Wine, the stage name of singer/songwriter, Samuel Beam writes from the perspective of a man walking around the world. He sees everything from blooming fruit trees to a building high as heaven. The song captures a large smattering of "things" happening and going on in the world. The collection of sounds in background brilliantly illustrate the beauty and driving, steady chaos of modern life. Although, a different line or image sticks out to me every time I listen, one particular line always ends up sticking with me.

     I see lovers in a window
     Whisper, "Want me like time, want me like time."

Time, there is nothing else so cruel, fickle, and fleeting as time. Whether in a daily sense, like being unable to complete all the tasks on the to-do list, or in a grand sense, like being unable to spend enough time with those that we love.

I have always hated it around Christian circles whenever you here someone talk about dying and they say that they have no fear of dying because they will finally be done with this world and home with Jesus. Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer that heaven will be better than this earth and anything I can imagine. However, am I in any hurry to get there? I don't think so. I believe pining after heaven is like a tired man thinking about sleep. When he finally falls asleep, his state of consciousness will not even recognize that he was thinking about sleep prior to falling asleep. In short, thinking about sleep is a waste of time because when you are asleep, you will not remember thinking about it. Sleep is temporal, but we will be in heaven forever. How much more useless is it to waste any thought of hurrying ourselves along to it? Will we even remember our time on earth? Since eternity exists outside of time, we will be left with a proportionately, infinitely small pocket of memories. If we are to remember our time here on earth, will we congratulate ourselves on our readiness for heaven?

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, we find the passage of the "time for this" and "time for that" montage. Just a couple of verses down from that, we find this in verse 11:


He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he
cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.


Let us begin with God putting eternity into man's heart. First of all, we must stop thinking of eternity within the confines of time. We oftentimes think of eternity as just a lot of time, but since we are temporary beings, we can only think of more of what we have experienced. Here and now, time is the framework in which we exists, thus everything is happening as we move through it or as it moves around us. Eternity, however, is not a larger amount of time, it is a totally different framework in which we will live. It is a frame that is not so much longer than time, but fuller, or more complete. One that does not move, begin, or end. 


So, God has placed this eternity into our hearts. I think that in the same way that we only use a small percentage of our brains, we only use a small amount of our hearts and/or souls. So, the knowledge and understanding of eternity is hidden away from us deep in our hearts. Though we can't completely comprehend or even access us, our hearts know there is a better way out there, thus we will always be frustrated with time. 


There is a time for everything under the sun and God has made everything beautiful in its own time. This does not mean that there is a appropriate and designated time to do all of these things. It means that for any activity that God has given us, there is a predetermined amount of time for us to do it in. For instance, you will spend 40 million seconds eating or 80 million watching television. Those things are simple and mundane things, but what about more meaningful things. 


Is anyone ever given enough time with a grandparent?
How much time is necessary to stare at the stars and fully appreciate their beauty?
The very thought of having a limited amount of time with a lover seems criminal?
Is 31,556,926 seconds enough time?
Is 60,000,000?
Is 200,000,000?
Could you ever have enough?


There is a fixed amount of time for everything. This will not change. There is only that amount of time for everything. There is no sense in wishing for more, because that is all we will have. There is no sense lamenting the amounts we have been given, because that in itself is time wasted. 


All we can do is tap into the eternity inside our hearts and try to experience everything, from waiting in line to holding our first child, to the fullest. To be fully engaged in a moment, to suck the marrow out of experience like you know that it will never be there again, is to taste a morsel of eternity. Find eternity in every second today.