Time flies

"What is your life? It is like an early morning mist that appears for a moment and is then blown away", James 4:14.

Time flies, and the older we get the faster it flies. The Bible is full of wonderful time-flying images and the King James version is particularly poetic in the way it describes the movement of time.

"Our days on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding", 1Chron.29:15.

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle", Job 7:6.

"Behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee", Ps.39:5.

"My age is departed and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent", Isa.38:12.

The older we get the faster time flies. When we were children, an hour's trip in the car seemed like an eternity, now it's just like driving around the block. Our school years were half a lifetime, while the last ten years seem like a shadow. Time flies, that's certainly the way it seems, although surely time is fixed. Actually, time is not as fixed as we think it is. Time, as we experience it, moves in relation to the speed we process information. Like a computer, we process information at a varied rate. From childhood through to our early adulthood, we process information far more quickly than in our later years. The sad thing is, the older we get the slower we process information. It's then that time seems to fly. We just slow down, although from our perspective, everything seems to speed up. The days get shorter, the years compound, everyone is in a hurry, walking faster, driving faster, "swifter than a weaver's shuttle."

We may delay the advance of time. Like the aging body we can keep the speed up by constantly exercising the mind, stretching the intellect, but inevitably the old grey matter just slows down. It is then that "my days are swifter than a runner, they fly away without a glimpse."

I am reminded that "with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." Our Creator God is at the beginning of time, and at the end of time, at the same time, for He created time. So, I may sense the inevitable rush of time, but there is no substance in that rush, for with Jesus there is eternity, permanence, "eternal life."

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