What Is Time? ⏱

This subject came up today as I was visiting one of my hospice patients. I’m sure my colleagues would agree that we go there to provide physical, spiritual, and psychosocial care yet they teach us more than we can teach them.

Webster defines time as “the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues : duration; a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future; the point or period when something occurs : occasion; an appointed, fixed, or customary moment or hour for something to happen, begin, or end <arrived ahead of time>; an opportune or suitable moment <decided it was time to retire> —often used in the phrase about time <about time for a change>; a historical period : age; a division of geologic chronology; conditions at present or at some specified period —usually used in plural <times are hard> <move with the times>; the present time <issues of the time>; lifetime; a season <very hot for this time of year>; rate of speed : tempo; the grouping of the beats of music : rhythm; a moment, hour, day, or year as indicated by a clock or calendar <what time is it>; any of various systems (as sidereal or solar) of reckoning time; one of a series of recurring instances or repeated.” I cut several portions of the definition out. God defines it a little differently. Considering the fact that God has no beginning, what is time to Him? Second Peter 3:8 says, “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Time is strictly for man’s benefit to measure. 

While time is for our benefit so we can show up somewhere at the proper time or end things in a timely manner, we think that we can attempt to micromanage God’s “timing” since we can control our own to some degree. You can’t hurry God. He appoints times and seasons and controls them for our benefit. The next time you are getting impatient with God, remember He has your best interest at heart and knows what we need when we need it.

I’m going to be a bit unconventional as I end this post. I grew up on secular music. Most people younger than I know him as Darius Rucker. My generation knows him as Hootie. Here’s a throwback video from Hootie and the Blowfish about time.