“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV
Reflection: what is the longest timeframe you use for planning something in your life?
I was talking with a financial planner the other day who asked me the question of my life expectancy. Or, put more bluntly, when do you think most likely you will die? Now, while that might sound like a pretty weird question, a bit crude perhaps, and certainly not a question most of us want to think about. But, it is of course an important question for the purposes of financial planning. Because you need to know the time frame, the length of time you are planning money for. Is it 10 years? 20? 30? In your financial plan, you would want to make sure the money doesn’t run out before you do, right? In a way, we all know that it is a bit of a silly exercise as none of us know when our time here is up. You might plan to live to be 100, but statistically very few reach that age. But this begs further questions of us about how we think about and plan in life.
Now, let me challenge you in thinking about what happens to our experience of time as we age. When we are very young, have our entire life ahead of us, a day, even an hour, can seem like a long time. But, when we get older and have a lot less time left of life (statistically speaking), even a year seems short. I’m sure you have felt this strange phenomenon, that the passing of time seems to accelerate as we get older. We can even wonder where the days, weeks have gone. But, are we even thinking about time correctly? Because we associate time with what we can see, like the changing of seasons, certain events, or physical changes like our bodies getting older. But we read something very interesting about our Lord God, who has always existed, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2 Peter 3:8 ESV. We see that God exists, outside of time, referring to Himself as “I AM”. He doesn’t change.
Perhaps as we get closer to meet God, our experience of time also changes?
Paul writes to the Corinthians about the passing of time, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 ESV. He is calling what we see and associate with time as “transient”, which is all what exists in the physical. And then he makes this very interesting observation about his own, personal experience watching his own body deteriorate as he gets “older”, his outer self is wasting away, he observes “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV.
This is such a profound statement, and we all know it is true. You can ask people whether they “feel” their age, and many, perhaps most, will respond “No”. Some feel “forever young”, as if their internal clock has stopped while their bodies can no longer keep up. It is as if they are in a time warp. Paul identifies this as our “inner self”, our souls. And we read here that Paul clearly is very focused on being more in tune with and strengthen his inner self which is eternal, than his physical body which is wasting away.
So where are you putting your focus? Outer or inner self? Transient or eternal?
How are we thinking about our life and time, and where do we invest our energy and resources? To get a few more years and “experiences” out of this life? Or are we having an eternal perspective, in our planning in our interactions with others, to strengthen our inner self, and build eternal relationships?