Inhabiting the past, present, and future

Reverend Steve Jones of the Mission Community of Exmouth, Littleham and Lympstone (Image: Steve Jones)

I find the concept of time so interesting. Did you know that there are 86,400 seconds in each day?

That seems a lot of moments to me! Albert Einstein suggested that time is just an illusion.

Time is certainly illusory from God’s vantage point because, being eternal, He stands outside of, and beyond, the concept of time. He sees all things that were, all things that are, and all things that will be, in the same perfect moment of clarity.

However, for us, time is that thing which regulates and marks the relentless march of our days.

Time is a social construct that humanity has found indispensable to ensure, as Einstein is reputed to have put it, ’that everything doesn’t happen at once.’

Time helps order our lives and provides a way for us to consistently manage ourselves relationally, socially, and in our work.

Time gives us a setting in which to comprehend human history and allows us to forecast likely dynamics of future growth.

As our society has advanced technologically, it has seemed that either we are busier than we were, or else time has speeded up.

Arguably, time is now a commodity, which you can spend on competing interests.

Steve Jobs aptly commented, ‘It’s really clear that the most precious resource that we all have is time.’

Given that we have this precious asset, time, how then should we use it? Some people use time to inhabit their past.

I am not talking about remembering good things that are emotionally encouraging, or being aware of our communal history, but living psychologically in what are perceived to have been 'better days'.

I have met many people who long desperately for the ‘way things were.’

The danger of spending your time in that mode of thinking is that your love for the past will always be unrequited, as the past is gone and is never coming back.

Sometimes, to really experience life now, we must let our past slip away into its proper domain of history.

Some people will use their time today to inhabit the future. By that, I mean people wishing that today were already tomorrow.

When I was at university as a mature student, our life as a family was hard.

I worked multiple low-paying part-time jobs, we had little money, I studied for long hours, and we seemed to have few quality hours together as a family.

For about a year, in my mind, I lived in our future; in the dream of what life would be like when I finished my degree and obtained a job.

While life was hard, for that whole year I missed many of the good, beautiful, and wonderful moments that were happening right in front of me. In that year I was a marginal man, inhabiting my future more than my present.

However, even when things are hard God still gives us special moments with Him, with those we love, and in the beauty of creation.

Therefore, if you are in that hard place today, please do not wish your time away, for something beautiful does exist for you to discover.

Some other people seem to fully inhabit this present moment.

They are not people who ignore the past, but they are not defined or constrained by it either.

They can be whoever they want to be, unfettered by their own or others’ past failures.

They can let the past be dead and breathe new life into today.

These same people also do not inhabit some future time, although they are aware of its approach.

They live right now, valuing time and knowing how long five minutes really is. In just five minutes, they can tell someone that they love them, that they forgive them, that they need them, or that they believe in them.

So, custodian of moments, how will you spend your next five minutes?