Time After Times

Our Sunday mornings on the Ten Commandments have been a reminder of how essential these rules are for our well-being. Staying away from false gods and idols protects us from building our lives on illusions that will eventually undo us. Honoring our parents rings true with what we know is right – and one day, we’re glad to be on the receiving end. We’re lots safer if most people are keeping the commands not to kill or steal or lie.

So with the command we attended to recently, to keep a Sabbath, Noting how our bodies and minds need a regular break and re-charge, and how our spirits need rejuvenating by meeting to worship together.

Another benefit to honoring God with our time is recognizing how finely tuned some basic rhythms of the created order fit with our health. As scientists have discovered in recent years how precisely tuned the forces of gravity and temperature and properties of water and atmosphere allow our survival. So with time.

Such as the length of a day. The time it takes for the earth to rotate completely fits so well what we can handle for a day’s work and the refreshment of a night’s sleep (when we can get most of it!) to be ready to rise again with the morning sun. How long could we endure a day / night stretched to 30 hours?

So, too, a week. Reportedly, during the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Sabbath was stretched to one day off in ten. A bold experiment in reinventing the week. But apparently the experiment was a disaster. People crumbled under the strain, and animals collapsed in the streets. We find divine wisdom and care in the cycle of a 7-day week, with a Sabbath-related pause.

So for length of seasons, agriculturally and emotionally, including holidays and personal / family anniversaries. And the length of year. They seem to fit so well – even if the passing of seasons and years keeps accelerating! These God-given periods give us landmarks for helping pace ourselves. Along with helping us track our lives and their overriding themes.

Yet for all the calendar’s predictability, time is full of mystery. The Creator has made everything beautiful in its time, while also setting eternity in our hearts that we cannot quite wrap our heads around (Ecclesiastes). The prophets spoke of The Day of the Lord, of final culmination, judgment and salvation, with barely a hint of when that may be come. So we are patient and persevere. Staying ready, with hope. Making the most of this day, with gratitude.