1000 Years in Just One Second

St. Peter wrote—

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is  like a thousand years, and a 

        thousand years are like one day.

—2 Peter 3:8

Dropping your youngest child off for her senior year of college brings eternity into clarity. The toddler with melting popsicle running down her face in a family photo is now the young woman getting ready to finish her degree in Religious Studies who is considering what form of ministry to pursue as she heads into the fullness of her life. There it is—all of existence in a single breath.

It is so different to be with a senior than with a freshman. There were the families in the long line of cars following Young Harris College’s procedure for freshman check-in. They had to go car by car, meeting an RA with a clipboard (yes, there are still times for such old-fashioned technology), checking off arrivals and pointing the way to the right dorm where another crew of upperclassmen waited to help lug the luggage inside. Our senior went straight to campus with her car on Friday night, unloaded a batch of stuff, hung out, dropped in on us, took Mom’s car over the next evening and unloaded with her friends in about thirty minutes. No teary farewells, no moment of parental recognition of a chick leaving the nest (she’s been alight for a while now), and no big deal. She’s older than the RA. 

But there in the back of my mind was me wanting to hold onto a few moments of her childhood just a bit longer. The same is true with her older brother, now embarking on “real life,” whatever that is. You catch yourself just sitting on the sofa watching him wordlessly as he reads a book. You still catch a shadow of the little boy there somewhere, but then you see this fully fledged human being. I want to hold onto the child playing with blocks in his room for just a bit longer. I want to hold onto the toddler smeared in popsicle just a bit more.

But a thousand years has passed. 

The photos record their passage. There is still a box of utterly useless VHS tapes someplace offering recollection of times gone. 

But they are gone.

I look in the mirror. The dad from those pictures is gone, too. In so many ways, I was child then, too. Now there are more signs of experience etched into the face in the mirror. There are the inevitable creases along the brow and around the mouth. There is gray in the hair and the beard (before it’s shaved). They have been earned. Riding the waves of up and down with success, failure, upsets, and victories that come with life leaves its mark. We are the children of time who can do little with it except flow with it. 

Peter knows this truth. He also knows what it is like to be in a little boat on big water (he was a fisherman, after all). In the flow of time, we are often on that little boat, clinging to the oars, hopping beyond all hope to get to the other side. There are other moments of doldrum calm. Nothing moves. Not a breath. Then the wind fills the sails and we fly. Peter knew well that most of the time, you just take what comes, adjusting, adapting, and meeting it. We can plan, but time will have its own way. 

So he looks beyond time.

He finds the Lord of all time, the Creator outside of time. He finds hope.

How?

God, being free of all time, can enter any time. God can support those for whom time drags in worry, hurt, or boredom. God can celebrate with those joyous moments, escalating them into glory. God can walk in and through time. God is there with the little child still residing in the heart of my child. God can be with me as I look in the mirror, wondering where all the time went. God lets us know that no matter what time we are in, it will pass into something else, offering freedom from this moment. At the same time, God treasures the wondrous moments of miracle, taking them into God’s own being forever. 

It is such existence in and through God that allows Christ to walk along the roads of 1st Century Palestine while simultaneously walking with each of us each day we have.

It is in that walk that we discover that there is always more time. We change, the world changes, and all around us changes, but God remains.

We are walking with God and into God.

All shall be well.