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THE GRACE OF TIME
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, October 4, 2025 – If nothing else, the latest failed prediction of Jesus’ return (September 23rd and/or 24th, or possibly September 25th, etc., 2025) should give us a renewed sense of gratitude for God’s grace of time. Sure, we’re grateful for God’s love and for God’s protection and for everything else God generously provides for us, but we often forget (or perhaps are unaware of) the importance of the grace of time to God’s plan. If we’re still here on Earth, it’s because we still have work to do – on ourselves, on our souls – work that will further purify the spiritual gold within us and burn off whatever doesn’t belong in Heaven.
Some people say all it takes is “belief” to get Home, but I disagree. Professed belief, like talk, is cheap and has no essential value unless, over the passage of time, we can prove by our actions that our professed belief is real. That God grants us the grace of time is evidence of the importance of allowing our belief in him to play out through our actions. Playing out takes time because tests take time. Falling for or resisting temptation takes time. Recovering from failed tests takes time. Regrouping and consolidating what we’ve learned from our lessons takes time.
Without the grace of the passage of time, all we have to offer God are declarations of loyalty that may or may not hold up under pressure. We’re tested for a reason. We’re punished for a reason. We’re given the grace of time for a reason, a reason that perhaps God and God only knows, and that should be enough of an explanation for us. That, too, is a test.
I admit to being less than grateful on occasion for God’s grace of time, being impatient to learn whatever I need to learn and to get done whatever I need to get done so I can get Home. While impatience is not a sin, it’s also not an ideal response to a situation. We don’t call it “the impatience of saints”; God doesn’t encourage or reward impatience, even when our impatience is prompted by a desire to be with him and Jesus in Heaven. We can do God’s will only so far when we’re impatient, as impatience indicates a disconnect between our concept of time and God’s, and any disconnect between us and God is not good, will not get us where we need to go.
It’s important to note that while the early Church prayed fervently for Jesus to come back, they didn’t build their lives around his return. It wasn’t the focus of their ministry. That’s why there are so few mentions in scripture of the prophesied end-times ascension event. We also don’t see any evidence in scripture that the early Church prayed to be taken Home before their time, to jump the spiritual gun, as it were. In focusing on their ministry rather than on their own individual wants, they showed their gratitude to God for his grace of time.
Jesus himself mentioned his second coming only on a few occasions. He didn’t want his return to be the focus of the rest of our time here. That he didn’t want his return to be our focus is evidenced by his assertion that we can’t know when he’s coming back and that his return will be a surprise to us all. We can expect his return, we can prepare for his return, but we can’t know exactly when it will happen. The right way to prepare is to be spiritually prepared – that is, be doing the work God has given us to do, not standing around staring up at the sky and waving a “JESUS IS COMING BACK SOON!” sign. Jesus doesn’t command us only to be waiting for him; he commanded us to be occupied doing the work God gave us to do.
Doing that work is how we wait for Jesus’ return. It’s also how we show gratitude to God for his merciful and much needed grace of time.
CHANGING TIME
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 11, 2025 – Time has a feeling. We associate certain times of the day with certain activities and therefore certain feelings. Mornings are typically for waking up, which means we engage in activities that help us do that. Evenings, on the other hand, have a whole different feeling. Evenings are typically for winding down, and our activities reflect that.
But what if time is changed? What if morning isn’t quite yet morning and evening not quite yet evening? What if the morning is not yet dawn and the evening not yet dusk? Would we still want to do the same activities an hour and half ahead of what our body is telling us is the “real time”? Because our body knows exactly what time it is, even if consciously we don’t.
When I was a kid, my bedtime was 8 p.m. sharp. I remember that, because I always had trouble falling asleep in the summertime. I remember lying in bed and staring out the window at the sunshine. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not get to sleep.
In real time in Halifax, 8 p.m. in the summertime is dark. What I mean by “real time” is solar time. In Daylight Savings Time, it’s not dark until nearly 9:30 p.m., which is almost an hour and a half later. If, as a kid, I’d gone to bed at 9:30 DST instead of 8:00 DST, I would have conked out the minute my head hit the pillow.
As a culture, we have the perpetual feeling that time is getting faster and faster and that our days just fly by. Is it possible instead that the shift from “real time” (solar time) to “fake time” (DST and Standard Time) has robbed us of our true sense of time, and in so doing has made us feel that we’re always falling behind? Our body says it’s one time, while our clock claims it’s much later.
Take now, for instance. My laptop clock tells me it’s nearly 12 noon, but my solar clock says it’s just 10:30 a.m. These two times bring with them entirely different feelings related to the activities attached to them. They also have entirely different qualities of sunlight. So if my body is telling me that it’s mid-morning and maybe time for a snack but the world is telling me it’s high noon and time for a full mid-day meal, how is my body to make sense of this conflict other than to feel that time is getting faster?
But the truth is that time is not getting faster. Time is getting changed into fake time that doesn’t reflect reality. When it’s 5:30 a.m. according to the sun but already 7 a.m. according to DST, should we really be surprised that it’s so difficult to drag ourselves out of bed?
Again – time is not getting faster; time is getting changed, like scripture said it would. But not in my house. In my house, time is set to solar time, so no matter what time the world tells me it is, I’m always pleasantly surprised to find that it’s much earlier than I thought it was, and I still have lots of time to do whatever needs to be done.
Feels good!
THAT ONE THING
CHARLO, New Brunswick, February 1, 2024 – There are so many things that we can do, but only one thing that we should do. We need to be careful, we believers, to focus on that one thing and ignore the rest.
The world is full of noise and distractions that lead us astray, or the world will allow us just a little tiny bit of time to spend on that one thing, just a teensy tiny bit of time, just enough so that we can comfort ourselves thinking we did it, all the while making silent vows to spend more time on it later. The world is very good at grabbing and holding our attention – grabbing and holding us – and in so doing keeping us from doing the only thing that matters. Did you know that the sole purpose of the world is to redirect our attention away from God? By “the world”, I don’t mean God’s creation (God made his creation for our comfort and joy); by “the world”, I mean Satan’s creation; I mean all things fake and lies.
One of the for me unexpected joys of aging is being able to break through the noise and ignore what has no value. I now have no trouble saying “No” when it’s warranted. When I was younger, I wanted to please everyone and put a smile on their face, and so many a time I would say “Yes” when I should have said “No”. Many an hour I spent doing things I shouldn’t have done with nothing to show for it but regret and bad memories. I don’t do that anymore. I focus on doing that one thing and that one thing only. I get more frowns now than smiles, more grumbles than grins, but I don’t care. And that’s another unexpected joy of aging – not caring what people think of what you do or what you don’t.
Tomorrow is not a given. Even the rest of today is not a given. The older you get, the more you realize this truth is meant for you. At some point, your number is up, and I sure as heck don’t want mine being up when I’m doing something other than that one thing that I know I should be doing. I’d definitely have some splainin’ to do if that happened. And God would likely remind me that I should have known better – I of all people should have known better – but at that point it would be too late.
The notion of “too late” is not something that strikes you when you’re younger. Time stretches before you, and with it the presumed assurance of having plenty of time yet for redo’s. If it doesn’t work this time, we’ll try it again next time; if it doesn’t work next time, we’ll try something else. There’s always a nearly infinite amount of time for do’s and redo’s when you’re younger. But when you’re older, time is short. Years are short. Days fly by. There might not be time for a redo, so you’ve got to get it right the first time around.
But how can you always get it right the first time around?
Here’s how: You do that one thing. You focus on that one thing. Your whole world becomes that one thing, that pearl of greatest price that Jesus told us about, the one that you sell everything you have in order to buy. If you focus on that one thing, you’ll get everything right the first time around and you won’t have to worry about regrets or redo’s. You won’t even have to worry about time because you’ll know that time is just something that passes, like everything else in the world, just something that passes and then is gone.
When you focus on that one thing, there is no time… until one day there really is no more time.
And you’re Home.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 