Does Time Fly?

Altha and I have some out-of-state friends coming over on Saturday. I looked on my calendar to see when they were here last. It was over a year ago—Wow! I would have guessed it was only a few months ago! It is a universal adage that, "The older you get, the faster time seems to go." But why?

I went “Googling” for an answer. This is the best explanation I found. When you're five years old, a year is one fifth of your life. Waiting for Christmas, as an example, seems forever. In comparison, when you're 20, a year is only one twentieth of your life, and while the days don't exactly fly by, a year doesn't seem like the eternity it was at five. And by the time you're 50, a year is only one fiftieth of the time you've experienced—thus, a year whips by rapidly. By the way, I’m 63, and since time is going by so fast, I wonder if I will have enough time left to do all the things I would like to do.

Consider Jesus, who only had about three years of ministry on earth—He was never in a hurry. He was enormously busy and often exhausted at the end of a day. But He always seemed to have time to love and minister to people, often spending an extended time with just one person. He saw interruptions in His schedule as God’s opportunities. And at the end of His life on earth, though the world was still full of people with needs, He could pray, “I completed the work You gave me to do” (John 17:4). All that mattered is that Jesus did everything God called Him to do in the time allotted to Him. No matter how fast times seems to be moving, all that matters is that God is giving us all we need of it to do the things HE wants us to do.

When all else fails, Read the Directions

A Los Angeles woman is suing Google for giving her bad walking directions. As a result of following them she was hit by a car. Although Google Maps directed her to take a busy highway, it also warned her that the highway might not be suitable—“that the route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” She failed to heed the warning, and suffered the consequences.

This is not just another example of our litigious-happy culture. Worse, it reveals a particularly passive part of fleshly nature—responsibility avoidance. Ever since Adam failed to follow instructions, mankind has been trying to figure out who he can blame for the unhappy ending. In my years of counseling, I found this to be one of the most common ailments for those seeking help. Having failed to follow God’s instructions, they were suffering from the undesirable consequences. My task was to get out the instruction manual and help them start over.

For those of you in search of God’s direction for your life, may I remind you to read God’s instructions carefully? “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:6).