The Tragic Truth About Time

“Life is not measured in time, but in love, contribution, and grace.”

— Carly Fiorina

Life is the learning ground. But we only realise this when we are plunged into the darkness of things like a terminal sickness or of a loss incalculable. Suddenly a heinous road opens up before us, and those material things and things of achievement we placed much stock in pale in comparison. Perhaps only those who have weathered these dark roads can attest to the strength-of-wisdom learned in having their souls stripped away.

When we have become barely human, the immaterial things rise in prominence, and we find our essential humanness. When we have come alive spiritually, we have only then truly come alive.

Life Is Deeper Than Time

We very truly live a short time.

Whilst that is such a simple and obvious statement it bears conscious recognition. We have less control than we think we do. Even with all the health choices we make we don’t have the final say. We exist in this life because of one thing: the unfathomable measure of God’s grace handed to us on a golden platter.

This life, mine and yours and everyone else’s, belongs to God.

Yet we rally against the Divine, even Christians, in ways to suggest that our time is ours, and that we have either oodles of it or we never have enough. Time is too abstract to understand, and this is proven by how jaded we feel when the biggest of life’s events happen.

This life that belongs to God is deeper than time.

Transforming Our Life Focus

The moment we can conceptualise that life is much more than time—that it’s about love, making a contribution in others’ lives, and epitomising grace—we find the perspective and the peace we have always looked for in life.

Transforming our life focus is about challenging our ideas about time. Time is an illusion; we hoard it at our peril. The more time-hungry we are, the more selfish we get, and our contentedness evaporates.

The more we can debunk traditional ideas about time, the more we invest in the eternal processes of life. We fall in love with people generally, and we see the gifts beyond every bad thing that occurs to us.

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Time is not something we can save; it’s something we have to spend.

The more generous we are with our time the more content we’ll be. Peace exists in surrendering our time-god to the living God of glory. Then we learn life is about love, making a contribution, and grace.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Special acknowledgement to: Pranitha Timothy, for partly inspiring this article.