SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

snapshot               Time is a temporary phenomenon.
            Time is a phenomenon experienced in this universe. In fact, as described in Genesis 1.14 it seems one of the purposes of this universe is to mete out time.  We understand that time is not a constant, but is relative to the speed of bodies in motion. Yet our experience of it is constant – whether counted out by a quivering piece of quartz, a swinging pendulum, or the setting sun.  It seems to accelerate when we’re having fun, or facing a deadline.  It seems to decelerate in line at the post office, or watching for one’s number to come up at the DMV.  But the operative word in those last two sentences is “seems”. An hour still has the same value as a fraction of the time it takes the earth to rotate for one experience as it has for the other.

            Time is a phenomenon specific to this existence, like gravity, the flavor of pure vanilla, and the hexagonal pattern of a snowflake.  At some point time will cease to be. We call that other existence “eternity.”  When we think of what “eternity” means we usually think of it in terms of time.  The old preacher’s illustration of an ant walking the circumference of a steel ball comes to mind. “When that ant has walked for a billion years, and has worn a groove all the way through that steel ball, the first day of eternity will have just begun,” they used to say.  That illustration helps us think of the expansiveness of eternity – but still ties us to time.  We all asked (or wondered) as a kid, “When did God begin?”  But having a beginning, a middle, and an end are all specific to the experience of time.  When Peter tells us that with God “a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years a day” (II Peter 3.8), he is reminding us that time is not a phenomenon that applies to God. God is. “I am that I am,” He says to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).

            When we join Him we will exist in eternity – which is not an endless string of years, but an existence without years or months or days or minutes – or millennia. There will not be a past to regret, a future to worry us, or a present that must be managed. There will only be an overwhelming NOW in the presence of He Who Is.

            - Which is an encouraging think to think about while looking through a stack of old snapshots.

            It is takes a deal of courage to really look through a stack of old snapshots – to be presented with the photographic evidence that your parents are no longer young (or there), that you are no longer young, that your children are no longer children, that some of your best friends are no longer alive -   and the phenomenon responsible for these changes, for the deterioration and the loss, is time.

            And so it is good to know time’s days are numbered. To know that our “corruptible” bodies will emerge “incorruptible” (I Corinthians 15.52ff), and those lost will be permanently restored (I Thessalonians 4.13ff).  To forget this is to despair, or to loose all sense of the value of the time we have – for the short time we will have it.

            Because, time is a temporary phenomenon.

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