For my days pass away like smoke. (Psalm 102:3a)
At some point in the day yesterday it hit me. Out of the blue, I had this sudden realization that it was Labor Day and another summer had passed by. I wondered to myself, “Where did it go?” It seemed like just yesterday was Memorial Day and we were wrapping up another school year and getting ready for graduation. Now, the fall term has begun, and our youngest child is in college. Where did it go?
As I talk with people, I know most of us feel it. Time marches steadily forward, but it seems to get faster and faster with each passing year. I can remember those long school days, sitting in class, watching the clock tick by with each second seeming to last forever. As the teacher droned on, I kept thinking, “I wish time would move faster!” Now I long for the opposite. Now I long for those days when the clock seemed to move at a snail’s pace. Now I know what the Psalmist means when they write, “For my days pass away like smoke.”
We cannot go back. And we cannot make time slow down. So what can we do?
We can try to savor each moment. Time won’t slow down, but we can. I just spent several glorious minutes listening to the rain falling outside my window. In those moments I was carried back to my childhood, listening to rain falling on a camper roof, playing games with family. In that brief moment, time did stand still. In that moment, I got a momentary glimpse of eternity.
My wife likes to say, “No writes on your calendar but you.” We don’t have to say yes to every request, every invitation, every task. We can carve out space in our busy lives to listen to the falling rain, watch children play, go for a walk, or just sit and be. While those sabbath moments, too, will pass away like smoke, in them we may get that momentary glimpse of eternity, which is, in my thinking, what heaven truly is.
Slow down. Take time to savor a moment now and then. After all, fall will quickly come and go and Christmas will be here before we know it.