Time

[B-A-C]

When we are young, it seems we have forever. But as we get closer and closer to the end of the road, time gets shorter and shorter.
When I was young we didn't have cell phones and the internet. I lived on a ranch for a while and rode horses when I was younger.

Jas 4:14; Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

I knew my grandmother, she was alive before airplanes, automobiles and moon landings. It amazes me that just in the last 200 years... all the things that have changed.
The fastest man could travel for thousands of years, was however fast a horse could go. Nothing could travel faster than that.

Then we had steam locomotive trains, and finally we could go faster than horses, the average commercial jet flies over 650 miles an hour these days.
We can travel across the entire United States in 4 or 5 hours. Some military jets fly much faster than that. We can even fly to continents all the way on the other side of world in 14 or 15 hours.
It doesn't even take an entire day to go almost all the way around the entire world. We have instant television, We have instant cell phones, instant internet, even instant food it seems.

My grandmother said when she was young they still had horses and buggies. Going into town was an all-day trip. It took an hour or two to go 40 miles. Then you took care of business,
bought food, did your family doctor visit ( there wasn't a hospital in that town ) if you wanted to talk to your friend, you walked or rode to their house usually a 5 or 10 minute journey.

But now we have fast cars, faster planes, and even faster internet. It would seem like we have more time, but we don't really, we are just busier. We go more places, we spend more money,
and yet, somehow it seems like we never catch up. There is still plenty of work to do tomorrow. However fast the technology moves, it seems the workload moves even faster.
We always think technology will let us work less in the future. But we just buy bigger houses, newer cars, more farmland, and these things just make us busier.

Isa 5:8; Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field, Until there is no more room, So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!

The cities these days are so big, so much traffic. Houses and apartments are just built on top of each other higher and higher. There are less and less forests and parks.
But it seems despite all this "togetherness". People in the cities are some of the loneliest people in the world. We are too busy for relationships. Even a relationship with Jesus for many people.

My grandmother told me once, all people care about these days is the quantity of life, not the quality of life. It seems that is even truer now than it was when she was alive. She died back in the early 1980's.
Over 40 years ago now, and she was almost 90 years old then. She was born in the 1890's. Not so long ago for many of us. I wonder... why is it... the faster we are able to go.. the busier we are.
We have less time for each other, and in many cases less time for Jesus/God. Everything has become more important than God these days.

I'll take time to talk to God, some as I get a career started, soon as I get a family started, soon as I finish college, soon as I get my feet back on the ground.
That turns into soon as I get house paid off, soon as I get my kids out of soccer and softball practice, soon as my kids get grown up and move out. All of the sudden it's time to retire.
You're not a young man or lady anymore. Where did the time go? How did you spend your life?

Matt 12:36; "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
Luke 12:21; "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

One day you will look back on your life and wonder, what did I spend my life doing? Working for God, speaking life and truth...?
Or just accumulating material things, talking about things that don't really matter?

1Tim 6:19; storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

One day all of us will stand before God. Will He say to you "well done my good and faithful servant"?
Or will He say...
Luke 10:41; But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;

 

[Rhema]

When we are young, it seems we have forever. But as we get closer and closer to the end of the road, time gets shorter and shorter.

That's because the unfolding of events (time) are perceived as a percentage of life lived. To a ten year old, one year is 10% of his life. To a 50 year old, it's 2% - a lot shorter.

When I was young we didn't have cell phones and the internet.

When my parents were young, they didn't have phones at all. Or TV. Neither cars nor refrigerators. (Okay, they did have a refrigerator, but not a washer and dryer - or car.) But these things don't speed up time, they stop the waste of time. My dad had to take the bus to work - 40 minutes. with a car, 15 minutes (no bus stops). Same with laundry. They would need to take an entire evening to load up the dirty clothes and ride the bus to the laundromat, dragging me along.

The fastest man could travel for thousands of years, was however fast a horse could go. Nothing could travel faster than that.

I'm sure you meant a sailing ship.

My grandmother said when she was young they still had horses and buggies.

And polio.

We always think technology will let us work less in the future.

It has. It has also let society grow more food with less manpower, meaning less sweat and tears and pestilence. There was no supermarket when I was young, just a local grocers, with milk and eggs being delivered to our home, typically by a truck that spewed out obnoxious pollution. Now? You don't think the entire world would want to live in the luxury found throughout most of the US? (One can just head off to the local field by Home Depot and swoop up a goose !!)

But we just buy bigger houses, newer cars, more farmland, and these things just make us busier.

Absurd. What's wrong with a nice house? What's wrong with indoor plumbing? (Or do you extol the virtues of an outhouse?) And busier? Doing what? Leisure activities. But of course it's evil to take a cruise ship, or travel to see the pyramids. No? Your grandparents were just as busy if not more so, having to can food, prepare food, cook food, wash clothes by hand, beat rugs outdoors, mow lawns with a scythe.

I live in Amish land in Pennsylvania. Are their lives so idyllic? Nay Nay. They may keep the smell of manure to themselves. Alcoholism is rampant, and they all have "evil English" friends whose arms they can twist to give them a ride in a car. But why such rigid and stringent lifestyle? Religious Bondage, plain and simple.

Isa 5:8; Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field, Until there is no more room, So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!

Woe to them that join house to house, and add field to field, that they may take away something of their neighbor's: will ye dwell alone upon the land?​

(Isaiah 5:8 Brenton)​

This passage is about ACQUISITION of wealth at the expense of others. Buying up (adding) house next to house, so that high rents may be charged. Buying up field next to field to use migrant labor for putting money in your own pocket.

People in the cities are some of the loneliest people in the world.

Yet they form communities, just as all people do. You want lonely? Look at the typical suburban housewife of the fifties, sixties and seventies. Husband has to travel to work, kids are sent off to government schools all day (spending all night doing homework). The wife is by herself doing housework and cooking. My mother stayed sane by listening to the radio, and then getting a job. With the city apartment culture, neighbors can be found close at hand to develop friendships. And what do you think the "old men at the gate" were?

You're not a young man or lady anymore. Where did the time go? How did you spend your life?

Matt 12:36; "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
Luke 12:21; "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

It's a bit ironic that you are condemning this present age with texts that are TWO THOUSAND years old. It's the same with the human heart today as it was 2,000 years ago, and technology didn't cause it.

My grandmother told me once, all people care about these days is the quantity of life, not the quality of life.

As if she liked going to the outhouse in the middle of winter. (Be honest.)

Rhema

That said ...

The cities these days are so big, so much traffic. Houses and apartments are just built on top of each other higher and higher. There are less and less forests and parks.

Lebensraum.