Where has the time gone? My son just turned one this month and I have often looked back and felt like this past year was the fastest of my life. Why does time see to accelerate, despite all our best efforts to hold on to it, savor the moments, or live fully? Time marches on.

Psalm 90 is written towards the end of Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the desert. Moses has just heard God’s judgement, receiving the news that he will die and not enter God’s promised land. Time marches on. What does Moses cling to when the reality that life really is fleeting hits? He clings to the eternal God, “from everlasting to everlasting, you are God”.

Often when we are faced with the reality that we are moving toward dust, we try to manage our time. We try to throw off our regrets, try to have more qualitative time with those we love, focus on the future, live in nostalgia, or just simply ignore it’s passing. Time marches on.

Moses prays, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom”. The curse of sin is not the truest story. We must trust God to redeem our days. This is hard for me. I read articles about how you only have eighteen summers until your kids go off to college or the dishes can wait, just play on the floor with your kids. And I feel a tremendous amount of guilt. I haven’t savored the short time I have had. And then, I love living in nostalgia, often remembering what things used to be like, the time I used to have to myself, the capacity I had for deep friendships. Time marches on.

When the weight of the day, the missed opportunities, my discontentment, the sorrow I feel over a life lost, hits me as I climb into bed at night, I need the Lord to redeem my days. Time marches on. But, I serve a God who is outside of time, who planned all my days since before he created the world and who gives me new mercies each morning. What do I cling to? The same thing as Moses… “from everlasting to everlasting, you are God”. I don’t have to control it, work hard to seize it, always look to the future or dwell on the past. I can rest, trust, and just live, knowing God has each day for me filled with His sustaining grace.