Time is NEVER ENOUGH

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. A lifetime. 

We measure life in time. 

Calendars. Schedules. Appointments. Alarms. Busy. 

We measure importance by how we fill our time. 

We think that time is a standard we can use to evaluate our lives, but time is never enough. 

Time seems like a great standard. We know that time is constant…60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year. The issue with these fixed measurements of time is that they are always experienced in a relative fashion. Time is a relative experience. We perceive the movement of time differently based on our personal experience of the moment. Perception is always reality to the one perceiving. 

Time flies when you are having fun, but time stands still in the face of tragedy. We are always trying to make up for lost time, while still having too much time on our hands. We buy time, kill time, and lose time but we are pressed for time and barely get things done in the nick of time. We want more free time, more me time, and more down time but then time after time we just spend time wasting time. 

Time is never enough, because humans are created for eternity. One definition of eternity is timelessness or the absence of time. Time is a created construct that exists in this world. We are only subject to the confines of time while we are bound to this world. The rules around time…beginning and end, only moving in one direction, past, present, and future…only apply while we are in time. But what about when we are out of time?

Death is the end of time. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. God is eternal. Heaven is eternal. There is no beginning and end. There is no morning or night. There is no time. There is no what was or what might be…there is only what is.

“There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 NIV)

God created us to be eternal, but we experience life within the confines of time. Time is never enough, because it was never intended to be enough. God set eternity into our hearts. We long for more than time. We long to transcend time because we know that there is more. Eternity awaits, but eternity is also present. Time is not our God. Time is not our master. Time is not our hope. Time is never enough. It is time to be out of time for good.