A Moment in Time

If you’ve ever watched NBC’s Manifest, you’ve likely been captivated by its intriguing plot line: a plane mysteriously disappears for five and a half years, only to reappear as if no time had passed for the passengers. While their loved ones have moved on, the travelers struggle to reconcile what has happened. The show wrestles with the nature of time, destiny, and divine intervention.

A couple of months ago, I read an article (I can’t remember which one it was to reference it) about the idea that the present doesn’t exist. Only the future instantaneously becoming the past. This moment of conversion is separated by the hands of a clock or the count of a stopwatch. When we think of time, we often think, “We never have enough of it.” Yet, what is it? It isn’t something material that we can collect to get more of it. Yet it flows relentlessly, carrying us from one moment to the next.

We experience time differently. We can all recall moments in our lives where the seconds felt like hours: sitting through a monotone lecture in college, being in pain or recovering from injury, or lying in bed unable to sleep. Yet, without the reality of time changing, we have experienced seconds vanishing before our eyes: a day of adventure with your family, a deep phone conversation with a close friend, or looking back over the growth of your children.

For us, time feels linear. We can’t return to the past or teleport into the future; we can only live in the present moment as it turns into history. Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us, “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.” Each moment is purposeful, even if it feels fleeting or insignificant.

But have you ever noticed how we live in the tension of what is yet to come and what has already been? We dream about the future, but it slips into the past as soon as it arrives. This rhythm can feel overwhelming, especially when considering that our lives will one day end. James 4:14 puts it bluntly: “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

Unlike us, God is not bound by the ticking clock. Psalm 90:4 says, “For you, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night hours.” While we rush through life, God simultaneously sees all of history—past, present, and future.

The most extraordinary moment in history is when eternity entered time: when Jesus Christ became flesh. At that moment, the eternal Word became flesh (John 1:14), stepping into our world of seconds and minutes to accomplish His plan of eternal salvation for those who put their faith in Christ. After His 33 years of moments, He encountered death and then a miraculous resurrection. In fact, His life would become a marker for time on our calendars.

I often love to let my mind spin, trying to process some of the ungraspable mysteries of God and His creation, but let’s rest in this truth: time is a gift from the One who stands outside of it. Use each moment wisely, live with hope for the future, trust in God’s eternal perspective, and know that His work on earth was to create a way for us to experience eternal adoption as sons and daughters through the saving grace of Christ.

If you have not yet wrestled with the reality of who Jesus was, don’t let another moment pass. Go to the Book of John in the Bible and read about the one person who ever broke the reality of time.