What is Time?
Pastor Jerry Wilhite,
author
Imagine a circle and in the circle is a straight line. The circle is endless with no beginning or end. That is God and the spiritual. The line has both a beginning and an end. That is the physical and we are of the physical. On the line imagine other lines branching out and away from the main line trying to come back to the line before the point where it starts but not making it all the way. It is always off by just a tiny fraction. Those represent lives of people living life in the past. Now imagine the lines branching and going ahead of where they start and never getting close to the main line again. Those are the ones who live in the future, always wondering what could be and worrying about what could happen.
We are supposed to live in the present, this moment here and now.
Matthew 6
34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.
There is no problem remembering the past. Every once in a while it is healthy and wise because from the past we can learn and hopefully prevent mistakes we have made. By the same token planning for the future is fine. Both of these are fine as long as we do not dwell in them or worse live in them. We are to live for this moment.
But what is time? Is it just a way to measure the distance from when we were to where we are to where we will be or is it more? Yes to both. Time exists at all times. Every second that has been is present with the second we are in, existing behind us not with us. Like stacking matches to build a model house, you are concerned about the one you are trying to put on right then, not the first one or last one or even the next one. To do so would throw you off and the whole thing could fall down.
Imagine the world being 25,000 miles around and you could travel at 25,000 miles an hour. That would mean it would take you an hour to go from beginning to end (which is also the beginning) in one hour. Now double your speed, you could do it in 30 minutes. But what if you could keep doubling until you arrived before you left? Now is where the real problems for that come in, The idea of reaching where you start before you start.
First realize the earth rotates on its own axis and it rotates around the sun and the solar system, galaxy, etc are also moving. Now if you wanted to go back a week on the earth and could travel fast enough to go back a week the problem would be the earth would not be here week earlier. It would have traveled seven days on its journey around the sun. Next you figure out where the earth is at this point, then you must figure out where the place you want to go to was seven days in the past because of its rotation on its axis. So as you can see the problem with time travel is not just a matter of time increments, but it is time and space.
ost say it does not matter because to travel as fast as needed would tear the human body apart. But in the 40's they thought breaking the sound barrier would do about the same but they did it anyway.
So why would we want to travel in time? How about actually viewing the lives of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus or even our founding fathers of the USA?
The point is the time, effort, and resources to do it may be here, but shouldn't we spend it on finding a cure for cancer, disease in general, or solving worldwide hunger?
Time is just a way for you to see where you have come from and where you could go.
I was born 12-19-52 so I can see that I came from the 50's, but it actually was not until the 60's that the world had any real affect on me. From that we can know I am a baby boomer, and lived through the cold war, Vietnam, 6-day war, hippies, drugs, free sex, and rock and roll. So if I forgot whom I am you and I could get an idea of what shaped me and formed me into who I am today. But that would be wrong because of my relationship with God I am no where close to what someone would expect from that time period. I hope I am a better and more loving person in the sense of God's love not man's.
Based on the present average life span I should live to be about 85 so I have until 2037. So what does that do for me, other than the idea of sometime in the next 30+ years I will die? Nothing because it does not shape me or make me who I am it is just raw information.
Now let's talk about time in regards to day to day timekeeping? There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day. It gets a little more helpful for me to schedule my day. I need about 8 hours sleep, figure another 1.5 hours eating unless you are in Europe then it would be more like 4 hours. I don't mean they eat more, they just are not rushing so much and maybe enjoying it more. Add about 30 minutes a day on personal grooming, say another 8 hours work, and 2 hours drive time. So that means I have about 4 hours to myself and if I tithe my time to God that means 2.4 hours with Him which leaves me 1.2 hours just for my self. I could look at that and think I do not have enough time for myself, but it is all my time. I can enjoy eating, and listen to tapes or CD's on the drive.
Basically time is a concept that we all will interpret differently but the outcome will be the same. How you used or misused it in the end. When you die will you look back and think, "What a waste" or will you look back and say, "I did it all and then some"?
That is what time is really about.