It's About Time

"But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God. My times are in your hands.'" Psalm 31:14-15a

The trouble with summer is that it goes so quickly.

In early June its possibilities seem endless. Leisurely afternoons at the beach. Campfires in the back yard. Finally cleaning out the shed and digging up the overgrown perennials in the garden. Kayak rides and quiet conversation. Drives in the country. Playing catch at the park. Bike rides. Long walks with the dog. In early June, it all seems possible.

And then time sweeps in with her long arms and snatches the days out from under your feet and you land with a bump in late September. Suddenly you're putting your vacation photos on your screen saver and pruning your mums and shopping for back to school supplies and wondering what happened to your Junetime dreams.

It is tempting to think of time as a solid. Twenty four hours in a day, seven days in a week, 31 million-plus seconds in a year. Something that can be counted is something that ought to be tangible. One ought to be able to hang on to each of those 31 million seconds and make them matter.

But there is nothing less in our control than time. The complete contrarian, it saunters when it should run and flits forward when we most want to hold it back. It is relentless, unmerciful, taunting as a will-o-the-wisp and twice as agile.

Here at the twilight of summer, standing looking wonderingly back at the season that has slipped away, I'm a little afraid to turn around and face what is coming next. Will it, too, skitter away from me, giggling with mischief as it goes?

Of course it will. Football games and apple cider will give way to shovels and mittens in the catch of a breath, and I will once again be left wobbling like a Weeble and trying to figure out what just happened.

Time, oh precious time . . . if only I could hold thee more tightly and bend thee to my bidding!

How humbling it is, and how heartbreaking sometimes, to submit the inevitability that is Time.

And yet...

We are not alone in time. It rushes around us, whooshing in our ears, making a day into a moment and a moment into a lifetime, but we do not stand in the storm by ourselves.

Through all the days made too short by their busyness, in all the hours that stretch on beyond endurance, there is by our side One who is bigger than time.

Our big God, who alone is outside of time, entered time in the person of His Son. He didn't leave us alone to flounder in a whooshy, tippy-time world but showed us in the biggest way He could that we are loved, that He is for us and not against us, that the Maker of time itself is on our side.

Wrapped in the comfort of not-aloneness, we see our zippy moments and our crawly hours and our very lives very differently. Time, with all its erratic eccentricities, becomes a gift to enjoy and savor. And our place in that time gains a whole new meaning.

When the to-do list gets longer instead of shorter and the day is full of too few hours, we can give thanks for the blessing of busyness and for the hope of tomorrow. When we are willing the minutes to pass more quickly, we can lean on the One who loves us and who spends His time by our side, ready to hear our hearts.

We cannot hold time. Instead, our time is in God's hands . . . the biggest, safest, most loving place it could be. With the inevitability of God's presence in every moment in our lives, our days are blessed and a blessing - all 31 million seconds a year.