Living in time the why and the how

conduct yourselves throughout your moment to moment sojourn here in reverential fear.’ (1 Peter 1:17 Chronos time: sequential time as a succession of moments). ‘…I trust in You…my times are in your hand’ (Psalm 31:14/15)

Time is a construct designed by the Creator for a creature made in His likeness. That is, the creature has an ‘I am’ which is a reflection of Creator’s ‘I AM.’ We are analogous to Him. We are spirit beings, but our spirit has been given a ‘carriage’ to house it and carry it through the Time realm in which it lives—realm that has the appearance of substance and permanence. God made it to appear solid and to respond as though solid. But it is of Time—temporal, and indeed temporary! Quantum Physics is revealing it is almost an apparition; like a hologram. It is comprised of particles, so small as to give the impression of solidity. But those particles behave in ways that defy Newtonian physics altogether.

We, and the apparently solid world around us, (what many call the ‘real’ world) are not as ‘solid’ as we think! And, not only is Time a construct, but Quantum Physics demonstrates that, at the very core of things, UNCERTAINTY or RANDOM-NESS appears to rule! One view is that time, like light and gravity, is granular…made of particles! Particles that keep appearing to form what we call TIME. But however, we understand time, I want to share about living IN it (since we are made for it!)

Definition: Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

Creatures of Time: (The man in the clock) We cannot create time. Time doesn’t so much pass, as though we were detached observers watching it go by; rather, we are WITHIN it as the events that constitute Time occur, instant after instant, providing, moment after moment after moment a place and a space in which ‘I’ exist and am ‘within’. Moments in which ‘events’ (things) can, and do, occur. So…where does time come from?

Could it be that there is no ‘future’ unless God keeps creating it; no next instant or no tomorrow unless He makes one!? Time is not a ‘right’. It is a moment to moment gift to be stewarded wisely. In my view, time only exists because God keeps on creating it, an instant at a time! Scientists speculate over what it is. Some say it’s continuous, like a flowing stream having an upstream and a downstream which we enter and are carried along. Others argue that just as light is ‘granular’ or ‘particulate’—so is time—and that the particles are infinitely small.

Whatever it is, we have been made to live in and on, the directional ‘arrow’ known as Time. Directional, because in our experience, it only ever goes forward.

Time is ahead of us, yet we can never know ‘ahead’. If it’s a stream, you can’t see downstream—and only to a limited extent, upstream (in our memory). We may speculate or guess, or hope...but not know. None of us knows...but One! The all-knowing (and all-caring) One.

Why do we not know? Why is Time like this? Time is the construct, the created space potentially in front of us, in which events or things can, and may occur, but we have no idea what will occur. Why is it then, that forever ahead of us is a vacuum of…UNCERTAINTY?

The reason we are not permitted to know is quite simple: we were actually made for something quite counter-intuitive to our fallen condition. TRUST. Not in anything within time, but in the One beyond and outside it! Made to know, not what is ahead, but Who is ahead—the Provider and Master of Time. His expectation is that the creature will trust the Creator. Humanly speaking, the only thing ahead of every one of us is, UNCERTAINTY; the only certainty is uncertainty! Unless we know the One who is Certainty! Uncertainty is used by our enemy to breed anxiety, OR, by the One who is Certainty, to provide and cultivate, Peace. Isaiah 26:3 says this, ‘You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.’ The Hebrew there translated ‘perfect peace’ is SHALOM SHALOM!

Yahweh-Yireh: Abraham discovered this and called this One who is Certainty, ‘THE-SEEING-AHEAD-LORD’, Yahweh-Yireh. Pro-Vision (pre-vision) simply means to see ahead—and that’s what He does. He asks us to trust Him to be our eyes ahead, like the guide on a rough mountain path who is twenty or thirty metres ahead of us, making a safe way for us. That’s our Certainty! Sounds like a big ask? Perhaps so, but to those who allow Him to be that and will walk in that, comes calm assurance, freedom from fretfulness, loss of anxiety. It’s how He wants us to live. In His ‘rest’, in this place called Time, moment after moment. Yahweh Yireh got to that mountain in Moriah well before Abraham and Isaac. He was there, waiting for them to arrive and when they did He revealed Himself in the moment! That is how He works…if we trust!

No Option but Trust! People do try to find (or manufacture) certainty in other things; all kinds of ‘things’; things we were not made to trust. Money, recognition, fame, power, ability, intellect, prognostications—none of which, as Jesus said, can add anything or provide restful carefree-ness. He talked of the ‘deceitfulness of wealth’ and Paul of the ‘UNCERTAINTY of riches.’ ‘Things’ are of the same temporal nature as us! Why trust them? None of these things KNOW! Only One knows—and asks us to travel the Time journey with Him.

Time (and its Maker) call for Trust. Uncertainty—the vacuum ahead—brings responses from every person: attempts to mitigate uncertainty/apprehension with trust in temporal ‘things’ OR, trust in Him, resulting in ‘peace that surpasses understanding’. Behind the UNCERTAINTY and RANDOM-NESS that appear to govern the universe at its smallest component level, is an Ultimate Government. Yes, the Uncertainty is all under Control! (‘By Him all things consist and are held together’! Col. 1:17 & Hebrews 1:3)

His Government is the option for which we were created—it’s called the Kingdom of God. There is a next step and a next after that, but we have to trust Him to have prepared it.

Anxiety and stressfulness put another way is simply, UN-TRUST! To trust Him is to un-trust the other stuff; to die to that and to live in Him! Here’s an old hymn to ponder this week with the Scriptures above…

Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine;

Living with Jesus, a new life divine;

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine,

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Refrain:

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;

Moment by moment I’ve life from above;

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Never a trial that He is not there,

Never a burden that He does not bear,

Never a sorrow that He does not share,