If you could travel through time which way would you travel? Forward? Backward? Sideways? I’m not sure that sideways is a valid option but for all of the Sci Fi fanatics out there, of which I am one, maybe it is traveling through an alternate universe. I don’t know, it’s interesting to think about though.
The past couple of months for me has moved at lightning speed! Can you relate? It has seemed like every day is jammed packed with meetings and prep for things that are coming up or situations that have popped up. Every weekend has had something that has demanded my attention. I pretty much don’t remember the month of August and September seems like a blur to me. Are we in October yet?
During the busyness of this season, something occurred to me. I am a prisoner of time and space. There are moments when I wish I could slow time down or travel backwards. In short, there are moments where I wish I could travel through time. Not enough to really screw up history, like Marty in “Back to the Future”, just enough to fix a few things or get more done. So if I had the ability to travel through time and my actions would make Boerne a ghost town, Trump would become president or cats would begin to stand upright and rule the universe…I’d politely decline. I’m getting off topic now, back to being a prisoner of time.
Then something else occurred to me: we are all time travelers. The unfortunate part for us is that time only travels one way for us, and that is forward. Depending upon how busy we are, we travel quickly through it or at a snail’s pace.
At times, no pun intended, that can get to me. The idea that time “keeps on slippin into the future”, to quote a song, can drag me down and depress me at times. I feel like I have lost moments with my kids, blown opportunities to have a date night with my wife and I wish I could rewind the tape.
While we are here on earth, we are prisoners of time. It pretty much defines everything that we do. We say no to certain opportunities based on the time that we have. We run out of it with our kids when they grow up. Time wears on your body and we are no longer the athletes that we once were. People that we loved dearly are gone because of time. The worst part of it is, it doesn’t even heal all wounds like we have always been told. Every moment is locked in place and time disappears as soon as it arrives.
“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” James 4:14
Okay, my point is not to depress you, but to point out a very important fact about God. I take great comfort in knowing this: God is unlimited. Because God is unlimited, time has no hold on Him. It is amazing for me to think about the fact that He is free from its confines and has the ability to move back and forth in it as a time traveler might.
“For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by,
or as a watch in the night.” Psalm 90:4
“But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” 2 Peter 3:8
He is not only unlimited by time but He is also omnipresent. In other words, there is no place that God isn’t. If we had the ability to travel to the future, He’d be there. If we went back to the past, He is still there. Time doesn’t move for Him like it moves for us. He is unlimited by it.
As a matter of fact, one of the benefits to us trusting in Christ is that we are given eternal life with Him. The great news is that we can partake in eternity right now. We don’t have to wait. Sure, that gives us assurance that one day when we pass, we can be with Him forever but it also has implications for the here and now. You can share in God’s eternity presently. We can pray for things that He might act on in the future. Your prayer might have an impact on someone you never meet. Your prayer could impact a movement in a future generation. Your acts of righteousness that you do in His name could have a ripple effect in your children and your children’s children. When you live your life for Christ, your eternity can effect someone else’s eternity. Your time really never runs out if you spend it wisely while you are here. I hope that’s an encouragement to you today. Spend your eternity today wisely for Him. God bless.
Matt
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