Almighty Time

September 24, 2007

by

Meriam Matthews

Time does not exist. No one can see time. We can only see its effects. We age, rock wears away, food spoils, the earth spins. Yet no one doubts that time is the measurement by which all these things happen.

We construct our lives in time. Time determines when our flight departs or our golf game begins. Time determines when we keep our dinner reservations and when our favorite TV show begins. Time is what passes from birth to death. Time is what we measure by the words "hour", "minute", "second", "year", "era", "millennia".

Time is measured by devices like watches, clocks, x-ray machines, suntan beds, timers on your microwave. Calendars remind us of the passage of time. Our phone bills calculate cost by measuring how much time we use.

Time is money to doctors, lawyers, landscapers, repairmen, consultants and others. Hours and minutes of duration are noted on DVD's, CD's, video tapes. 

Time is mentioned in the Bible in terms of how long the reigns of kings lasted, how many years people lived, what year a country was conquered or destroyed, when prophecies would occur, when feasts, festivals and rituals should be observed and performed. History books of other kinds note similar events that are measured by time.

Time is made into gold, platinum, jewels, crystal, metals and glass to wear on one's wrist or display in one's home. Time is silent or it ticks, rings, gongs, blares. Time is often sounded by a claxon,  a chime, a buzzer, a megaphone or a classroom bell.

We are surrounded, permeated, governed, regulated and maneuvered by time. Time runs our lives in one way or another. Time runs countries and stock markets.

And yet, not a single living soul has ever seen time. No one. Not ever.  But have you ever  heard anyone deny the value of time, or its truth, its passage or its existence? Have you ever heard anyone demand to see time so that they could believe it exists? No, you haven't, even though they let time control their lives.

Since God does all the things time does and infinitely more, why do so many people demand to see God in order to believe He affects anything? Why demand proof of God's existence when His work and effects are everywhere? It is God who determines how long your life will last – actuarial tables do not. A living personal, loving God holds your life and your time in His hands; a lifeless calculation written on paper or stored in a computer database does not.

It is God who maps your life from before you were born to after you die and beyond. It is God who decides if you live long enough to make your dental appointment on time or are killed in an automobile accident on the way. Yet many people demand to see God before they believe in Him, never making any such demands on time.

You wear a device which shows two hands inexorably moving time from one hour to the next. You believe it tells you the truth. But time refuses to show itself. It shows only its passage, not its path. It is invisible, has no taste, aroma, sound, or color of its own. Yet we believe in it because we move, work, eat, sleep, travel and meet with each other according to its dictates.

Ironically, we use time, an invisible non-existent concept, to tell us what day and hour to worship an invisible, immortal, eternal God. Yet some people honor one and disdain the other. Time does not exist. God does. Both run our lives, yet skeptics are faithful to one and not the other.

Why do you honor what does not exist in favor of what does? Time can do nothing for you to guarantee eternal life, joy, fulfillment and meaning to your present life. God can and does. And God, unlike time, will reveal Himself the moment you seek Him with your whole heart.

Every time you check your watch or the clock on the tower, ask yourself if you worship a non-existent god. After all, you permit time to structure your life. Is that because time demands nothing from you?

Time will not ask you to love one another or feed the poor or visit widows and orphans and prisoners. Time will never demand you control your anger, your deceitful tongue, your shady business practices, your inclinations toward perversity. Time will not demand you stop taking drugs.

Time will not ask you to be humble. Time will never demand you refrain from improper sexual activity. Time calls nothing a sin and makes no rules for your behavior. Time is quietly accepting of all you want to do. Time never disciplines you. Is that why you may be among those who believe in time and not in God?

Time has no rules. But it also has no power. God demands you live by His rules and He has the infinite power to use any method He pleases to get you to do so. But He does not. He wants at least as much of your attention and obedience as you give to the human construct of time but He wants it voluntarily.

Time may rule your worldly pursuits but God rules the universe and all that is in it, including your life and the passage of time in it.

We "spend" time but it buys us nothing. We stall for time only to succumb anyway.

Neither the existence of time nor God can be proved.

Time is a zero but God is eternal, infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient.

Nothing or everything. 

What time is it?