The Speed of Life

An email forwarded, not personally received. Seems I’m not important enough to remember. News? No. Nothing new. Same ol’ same ol’… Excuses. Delay. Pandemic. Schedules. It’s just the way it is. Life speeds on by, one second at a time.

How long is a life? You may as well as ask how long is a second…minute…hour…day? Quickly, how fast does time move? Someone described the speed of time like this, and it’s reworded for my vernacular use.

When you’re doing something you enjoy,
an hour seems like a second.
When you’re painfully engaged,
that same measure of time seems to be eons long. 

Time and Life are inexorably entwined. You cannot have one without the other, even if you’re not watching the clock. Life ages from the moment of conception, and truly, long before, but let’s start there. Union. Cells dividing and growing sort of magically. First breath, and then a long series of “firsts” until you reach the end.

How much time elapsed?

Side Bar, your honor.
How fast is the speed of light?
186,000 feet per second.
That’s Fast!

Time is often how we describe the length of life, but it doesn’t necessarily describe the quality, value, nor components of life. Back during the time of counting down to zero, and then counting up from zero (BC to AD), Seneca made this comment on life.

“Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.” ~ Seneca

It’s not how much time of your life you get to experience, but how much life you put into your time!

The Origin of Time

Consider with me for just a moment, time and life are both organized and planned by God’s grand design. You have no control over the beginning, nor ending of it all. The origin is in God’s control.

Read the first few verses of the Bible, and you find that before life, God created time. Think about it! Time was here before there was life, only, it must have been kept up with differently.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was on the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
So the evening and the morning were the first day.
(Genesis 1:1-5 NKJV)

Before there was light, everything was dark. That does not discount time. God spoke into the dark with words that created light. The beginning of “Time” is counted from dark to morning, from night till day. His timing.

Think about it, that’s how much “time” we have in a single day and we get to choose whether to make it productive or not. Used, yes, we devour every second. Productive? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.

The Value of Life

Then, God created life, and the last bit of life was humanity.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being.
(Genesis 2:7 NKJV)

Life. God formed (molded into shape) and God-breathed (as to inflate). That breath was not simply Oxygen, it was the breath of life. Somehow, the body came to life and the soul was born.

Just as man has tried to count (number) the stars and cannot create a good total, we have also counted (numbered) our days. We celebrate annual passages of time and the incremental value of years. For some reason, we value a certain age more important, and yet it’s those weeks before that we count that same life as worthless. Cast into the trash can of life.

Here’s My Key Thought

One second at a time! Life is lived, and time is lost.

Who are we to discount or devalue life? Is not everyone of us made in the image of the creator? True, we have polluted and changed what we are into something that is so against God’s plan, but he did give us the ability to choose.

It’s easy to say, “you’re worthless” and mean it, because we get burned too many times. That next person that reaches out just wants more and more. The next knock on the door, selling! Those incessant phone calls! Scams. Surveys. Junk. Hang up!

Think about it though, on the other side of every moment you despise, there is another person who is not worthless. They, no matter what the present, are an image of the same Creator. Just like you!

We cannot choose to say we are worthy, and others are not. All are equally God’s!

We need to change our understanding and approach the moment differently! No matter which side of the equation you are on!

Here’s My Thought Today

There are those among us who have “long-lived” genetics at work on their side. Yet, we all live during times when life is too quickly shortened. Too soon. Ill-prepared, we face the ending and everyone around us struggle with the exit. Seldom do we appreciate the life lived and communicate it before it’s too late.

How many hospital rooms, assisted living centers, or funerals have we attended? Equally, how many have we not had that last moment of time with a loved one, even an enemy, to make things more perfect for us who are still alive?

This is important. Life is too short and time passes too swiftly to hold onto grudges, bad feelings, or anger. It is best to simply Let It Go…

Let it go…

It’s not worth your time or health to keep it bottled up. You may never change the other person, but you can change yourself! Be the change needed by all of us. Show the way forward. You have all the time in the world to make it happen!