About Time

At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. — Joshua 10:12–13

God is the Master of time. He invented time and he’s not restricted by time. He can bend, compress, or stretch time. This is a part of his transcendence. 

When studying theology we often make the distinction between the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God. The communicable attributes of God are the attributes that he shares with humanity. Love is an example of one of the communicable attributes of God. Humanity, like God, can love. 

Being unrestricted by time is one of the incommunicable attributes of God. This means that God’s relationship to time is unlike our relationship to time. No matter how hard you try or want to, you can NOT change time. 

We have all had the experience of sitting in a meeting that’s gone too long. Everyone is tired and desperate to get out of there and that one guy (usually me) is droning on with no end in sight. Inevitably, everyone starts looking at their watches. How much longer is this going to take!? In these moments, time drags on. The minute hand on the clock slows to an unbearable pace, and a moment feels like an eternity.

The counter-part to this is that time flies when we’re having fun. We’ve all been in that beautiful, almost magical moment when we wish we could just hit the pause button and make that moment last forever, but it just rushes past us. My mom gets this way when all of her kids and grandchildren are together at once. It’s a rare occasion that she wishes she could hold onto forever. The reality is that no matter how bad we want it, we cannot make time stands still. 

God can. He can do whatever he wants with time. It’s one of the privileges of being God. It’s one of the things that sets him apart from the creation. 

How we spend our time is not only important to God, it’s essential to God. We see this in the story of the Exodus. One of the first things that God does after delivering his people from slavery is change their calendar. He tells them when they are to celebrate and that they must Sabbath once a week. Their calendar was to be different than the peoples around them. Every other people in the world start their day at sunup; not the Jews. They start the day with dusk. The Jews start their day with rest. 

This is the same idea behind beginning the week on the Sabbath. The week begins with rest because the fate of the world is in God’s hands, not ours, which means we can spend time resting. Thinking that the shape of events in the world depends on my unending work is arrogant and idolatrous. Resting is a matter of faith that God is God.

So, what can we make of all of this? Going back to the concept of Sabbath, one of the greatest sins of ancient Israel is not keeping the Sabbath. Over and over again the God condemns Israel through the prophets for not observing the Sabbath. This was always a bit strange to me. Was it that big of a deal that they didn’t rest when he told them they must? If so, why? 

Well, as Jesus said, “your heart is where your treasure is” (Matt 6:21). If you want to know where someone’s priorities and values are, show me their budget. I will show you where a church’s priorities are if you show me where they spend their money.

This principle is not only true of how we spend our money, but also how we spend our time. What do you spend your time doing? With whom do you spend your time? How you spend your time will reveal if you have idols or if you’re are wholly His. Time will tell if you’re an exclusive monotheist or not.

It seems counter-intuitive, but spending time with God is more productive than not. How does that work? How does it work that stopping work is more productive? Well, the reality is that when we spend time with God, he orients us to what we should be doing. He calibrates our schedule. 

If you’re anything like me, I have 1.5 million things to do on any given day, and it is all too easy to slip into being occupied with the wrong stuff. This is the “tyranny of the moment”. Technology compounds this dynamic. Just while writing this, I’ve received nearly fifteen notifications on my cell phone. There ’s so much to do, so many emails to write, so many meetings to attend and manage, so many budgets to analyze that it’s overwhelming! What should I spend my time on? What is the most productive thing? God will tell me. I think this is part of the concept behind Bill Hybels’ book called Too Busy Not to Pray. Things are so busy that we need God’s help identifying what we can lay aside and what we must pick up.

Finally, when in the US I always try to get to Barnes and Noble to check out the business and management section. There’s a relatively new book out called The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. The premise of the book is that the best way to be productive is not to multitask but to focus in on one thing. This one thing is the “wildly important goal” that drives all that you do. When we’re focused on one thing, then we’re more productive. 

Christians, our One Thing is to get time with God. This is the most productive thing you can do. When we do this, our hearts and priorities are oriented and clear on what we should be spending our time doing. Don’t waste your time on things that are are not eternal. God will share with you his wisdom on what role he wants you to play today. He will fill you into his perspective on what needs doing and what can be struck from the agenda. The beauty of this is that when we’re working on His agenda, he can shape time accordingly so that we have all that we need to accomplish what he has asked of us. We will never be short of time when doing God’s work faithfully. We will have just the right amount of time needed. After all, he can bend, compress, or lengthen as he sees fit. He’s the Master of time.

Don’t waste your time. Keep the main thing the main thing, and you’ll have all the time you need.