I lately turned that magical age of 65, the place the social companies a part of our authorities immediately turns into essential. Once I take into consideration my life at this level, I’m very conscious that the factor I’ve most of is my previous. It looks as if growing old is just the speedy accumulation of the previous by means of wanton spending of an ever-decreasing provide of the longer term. The query is, what can we do with the previous we’ve accrued? Is the previous an asset or a legal responsibility? How can we draw on the previous for good use? How can a poor use of the previous hinder our current and our future? These are questions of accelerating urgency to individuals my age—perhaps any age.
The Previous Is the Human Expertise of Time
Right here’s a query that will appear dumb however is definitely fairly essential. How do we all know there’s a previous? The plain reply is that we all know there’s a previous as a result of we expertise the passage of time. However that doesn’t remedy the query. The place does time come from?
The notion of the passage of time is a distinctively human expertise. God is everlasting—timeless. The whole lot He creates exists in time. “To start with” (Gen. 1:1) doesn’t check with the start of God; it’s the starting of creation. Creation is time-constrained, whereas God is exterior of time.
All of creation information the passage of time. Timber develop over time. Sharp rocks turn into easy stones by means of weathering over time. Animals instinctively know when to construct nests, when to hibernate, and when emigrate. However people are the one creatures who conceptualize time, who “rely” the passage of time. God referred to as Adam to train dominion over creation—to have a tendency it for good. One of many methods we do that’s to handle life in response to time. Days and seasons and years and centuries and epochs and millenniums, in addition to hours and seconds and nanoseconds, are measurements we use to make sense of our existence within the train of dominion.
And we’re consistently monkeying with time. Anybody who has a partner who watches lots of sports activities is aware of to not belief if you hear, “I’ll be there in a second; there’s solely two minutes left within the recreation!”
Give it some thought one other method. How many people can assume again to what occurred whereas we had been asleep at 4 am this morning? Issues didn’t cease occurring once we fell asleep final evening. We simply don’t have any reminiscence of it as a result of sleep is a human state that stops monitoring time.
God pertains to us by means of time. We aren’t Buddhists, discovering enlightenment in escape from the constraints of time. Our non secular existence is everlasting, however our human journey is in time. God didn’t give us His Phrase in a single second in time. It got here to us by means of a millennia of time. Ecclesiastes is God’s e book of human mediation on time: For every thing there’s a season, and a time for each matter underneath heaven (Eccles. 3:1).
Most importantly, God’s treatment for a sin-sick world got here at a selected second in time:
“However when the fullness of the time had come, God despatched forth His Son, born of a lady, born underneath the legislation, to redeem those that had been underneath the legislation, that we would obtain the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).
Most Christians see salvation as God intervening within the timeline of their lives. They don’t see salvation as God’s intervention into historical past at a second of His personal selecting—on the proper time for all of time.
The purpose is that this: Time is a actuality of creaturehood. The expertise of time passing is a present to us as picture bearers of God. It’s also the place God does His work of redemption. Can we worth our previous? Can we see God in it? We have to see our whole previous as lived out earlier than God and in His sovereign objective.
The Previous Is At all times Occurring
One of many issues that received me excited about the previous this summer season was this quote from John Piper:
“The current is ephemeral; I imply, attempt to be taught one thing from the current; attempt to deal with the current. As quickly as you’ve got the current targeted, it’s the previous. Each millisecond is flowing over the waterfall of the current and turning right into a previous reservoir simply as quickly as you see it go over the waterfall. As quickly as you deal with a second, it has turn into a previous second. The one factor we will deal with that has any stability in any respect are the merchandise of the previous. All books are from the previous. All movies are from the previous. All recordings are from the previous. And this sentence that I simply quoted — all recordings are from the previous — is now previous.”[1]
Do you see what Piper is getting at? The previous isn’t a museum, it’s occurring each second we stay. We’re creating our previous each second. How we perceive the previous is a really current concern. We have to be discerning in understanding the previous. And we have to be aware that our current lives are including to the previous we’re accumulating. The query earlier than us is “Can we stay on this current second acutely aware of how we’re utilizing and defining our time? Can we push towards time? Can we waste time? Can we stay as if we management time? Or can we, as God’s redeemed creatures, see our time as embedded in His nice, timeless functions for why He leaves us right here on time-bound earth?”
As counselors and pastors, we intercept individuals and their struggles at moments in time. We essentially must understand how their previous shapes their expertise of current life.
However we have to assist people perceive that residing as if the previous determines the current or the longer term is bondage to one thing we will not management. That is true whether or not the previous they’re referencing is one among lots or need. Paul’s nice mission assertion in Philippians 3, “One factor I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining ahead to what lies forward, I press on towards the aim for the prize of the upward name of God in Christ Jesus” (vv.13-14) is adopted by a phrase of recommendation: “Let these of us who’re mature assume this manner” (v. 15). As we mature and age, allow us to more and more assume this manner and allow us to assist individuals see that to develop as a believer is to rightly reckon with the passage of time.
Query for Reflection
How can we assist ourselves and our counselees view the previous redemptively, in addition to with a view towards the current brevity of life?
[1] John Piper, “How Ought to I Deal with My Regrets?” Wanting God, November 25, 2019, https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-should-i-handle-my-regrets.
