Time and space are weird.
Example 1. As I type, my mom is sitting on a plane 32,000 feet in the air en route from England, where she has spent the last two and a half weeks with her mom, my Nanna. The beginning of those two and half weeks, my sister and I were there with her, too, enjoying a beautiful, multi-generational nine days of coffee outings, walks with Dottie the dog, and evenings in Nanna’s lounge reminiscing, laughing, and eating far too many sweets.
It feels like a brief moment ago that the three of us were on the plane on our way to Nanna, giggling about the awkwardness of our travel pillows squishing up our cheeks, while celebrating their helpfulness in propping up our necks for a few moments of hopeful sleep. Plane sleep is inevitably hard to come by, of course, and the minutes and miles just crawl by. And yet, here we are, two and a half weeks later. I’m home, sitting in my recliner, and my mom is a few hours away from being back in her home as well. Weird.
Example 2. I can distinctly remember the days before my first son was born. Late, he was, and I sat looking at the empty bassinet by the bed, rubbing my swollen belly wondering when I would get to meet this new little son of mine and see him lying there next to me instead of shoving my bladder up into who knows where. And now? He’s 20 years old, in his junior year at university, and not only that, but two other wonderful boys have since made their homes in my belly and found their way out. The first of which graduates high school in May, and the second close behind next year. Not one, but three young men launching into the world, even though I declare, it was a moment ago I had not even met the first one yet. Weird.
Example 3. Certain places seem to be in some sort of time vortex. You know the kind? These places know the habits of human sensibilities and manipulate our perception of time with their delightfully peaceful, instrumental praise music wafting into our ears, intoxicating us into thinking we have all the time in the world to wander the seasonal section and load our carts full of all the shiny new things (I’m looking at you, Hobby Lobby). How many times have I walked in on a strict mission and suddenly I’m stopped down in some random aisle thinking about buying a knickknack I don’t need with time I don’t have, and just like that I’ve lost half my day and gained yet another new pumpkin. Weird.
Example 4. At any given moment, there is a limited number of points between you and me. No matter where we are in the world, we exist in different places, and yet, we could get to each other if we wanted to. There’s a path from me to you. A difficult one perhaps, but it’s there nonetheless.
And just as there is a physical path between you and me, there is a path through time that connects us to every human who has ever existed and will exist. (Although, contrary to many a movie plot, we can’t traverse that one any which way we want). But it’s there. Connecting us back to the very first Adam, and more importantly to the second Adam, who is Christ, and forward to our children and eventually their children. And all of us will know the weirdness of time and space.
I’m sure it seemed “just yesterday” to Mary, as she watched her son being crucified on the cross, that she had held him in her arms as a miraculous little baby. And now two thousand years have gone by in which she has been with Him in eternity.
Time and space, vast as they seem, are really just mere specks in the scope of eternity.
We have been given the incredible privilege of holding, if you will, a small piece of that space and time. Maybe it would be better to say, we reach out and touch it as it goes by, like a hand in the rushing water beneath a motorboat carried along in a swift current. Or like a dog with its head out the window, the blissful air whooshing past his face, tongue flapping in the wind. He gets to feel it for a moment. But only for a moment.
So what will we do with our little bits of time and space?
How do we savor the moments our hands are in the water before the boat comes to a stop and we are transported to a different place, where time and space are of a different realm? A place where time doesn’t tick like we know it, a place that endures forever?
The world tries to tell us how to spend our time. And we let it, too, scrolling ourselves into a cyber-cookied, target ad’ed false sense of time and space: “Buy more, crave more, consume more; grab hold of all the things that won’t last: beauty, youth, fashion, the perfectly decorated home, the perfectly presented meal, the next viral dance.
But these are waterless springs, full of empty promises, leaving us parched and dry, shaking our heads wondering where the time has gone and what we have to show for it (besides a superfluous new pumpkin).
It takes intentionality to seize the moment and choose a wiser path for our finite feet. It takes a renewing of our mind; a sobering look up and a deep breath of fresh air to shake us out of our drunken stupor of frivolous pursuits. It takes conversations with fellow travelers, reminding one another of the precious promises given to us by the Savior we adore. It takes opening the Bible and letting its words and phrases, its chapters and books inform our reality and orient our sense of time around what is good and true, right and noble.
So how about now? Today? What can we do with our allotment of time and space?
Because here’s the other wonderfully weird thing about all this: no matter how yesterday was spent, NOW is always the right time to recalibrate. No matter what missteps we may take from one moment to the next, we can never outstep God, because He Himself is outside the bounds of time and space. He exists in every single point in the universe past, present, and future, and His infinite and sufficient grace will never run dry.
So today? Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus and remember the time He came and constrained Himself to the bounds of time and space, so that we could one day live with Him outside them.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time…Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:3-5, 13 (ESV)