Time is a Habitat

Time.

It stresses me out. Sometimes, there’s not enough time, like when I open my inbox. Or, there’s too much time, like when I lose a whole Sunday afternoon on Facebook and Wikipedia. When I look at my phone to check the time, my response is usually “Crap!” I’m either running out of time, or I’ve wasted more than I wanted to.

At work, time can feel like the enemy. The clock is an especially insensitive boss.

The Hebrew story of creation gives us a different picture for time. It says:

God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.”

Genesis 1:13 NRSV

Think about the last time you looked at the moon. Really looked at it. You had to look up at it, to see it as part of the sky that you live under. It’s a part of your environment. A luminous creature in the habitat of the heavens.

Did looking at the moon stress you out like checking the clock does? Of course not. But the moon does mark time. It just does it beautifully.

That’s what the Scriptures are saying in this passage. In God’s world, time is not a resource we’re running out of. Instead:

• Time is beautiful.
• Time is a habitat to inhabit.
  
  

Today, what would it look like for you to look at time like that?