While on a walk the other night, one of my favorite instrumental songs, "Time" (from the Inception soundtrack), began to play on my iPod. Time has been on my mind a great deal recently and as I walked around my neighborhood, I began to really contemplate the concept of time. I feel most would agree that time can be considered both a blessing and a curse depending on the circumstances that may be occurring at any given point in our lives. While in wait for something desirable, one would likely say that time isn't anything but agonizing. Think of the poor children in the marshmallow experiment President Uchtdorf referenced in a past talk, for instance (watch here). Conversely, however, how often do we beg for more time in a day? I think I do that every day...ha ha. We don't want to wait for things, yet we also seldom feel we have enough time to accomplish everything we'd like to accomplish. Why is this? Why can't we find contentment in time?
Elder Neal A. Maxwell addressed this very conundrum in a book I've been reading lately. He wrote, "Time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course, but whereas the fish is at home in water, we are clearly not at home in time—because we belong to eternity. Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here."
Let me just reiterate, "Time is clearly not our natural dimension." I honestly don't feel I have really deeply considered this before. Time is temporal, not spiritual. This is what allows God to be omniscient and omnipresent. The past, present, and future are not separate before God. Now, although I may not be at home in time, it's also extremely difficult to comprehend living in a world without time. I don't even know what that would look like. Everything in my life revolves around time. Time tells me when I should wake up in the morning, when I should be at work, when I should leave work, when the weekend is near, when my birthday will arrive, when I will need an oil change, when my milk will go bad...you get the idea. I even spend a good portion of my workday teaching kids the concepts of past, present, and future. What would life be like if time was not a part of the package? I really can't comprehend it.
This led me to wonder though, if time is not our natural dimension, why must we live in a world that is so dependent on time? As I've considered and studied this, I've started to realize that time is a blessing I probably too often overlook. I read a book a while back by C.S. Lewis called The Great Divorce. If you've read anything by C.S. Lewis, you'll know it was a pretty thought-provoking read. But I remembered that near the end of the book, the concept of time was addressed very directly. I'd like to share a quote from that book below:
"Time is the very lens through which ye see—small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope—something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality....For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom."
Now Mormon lingo would substitute "agency" for "freedom" in that quote. Our knowledge of agency would be destroyed if time did not exist. Why is this? Well, if we already knew the end from the beginning, we wouldn't feel we'd been given the opportunity to make choices at all. A choice in and of itself is making a decision without knowing the outcome or consequences of that decision. So if we didn't feel we were actually the ones making the decisions, in Elder Bednar's words, we would feel as if we were "objects" rather than "agents". This is why I think it's tempting for us to blame God at times for our circumstances. We know God is all-knowing. We know he knows what will happen in the future. So why doesn't he protect us from the things that go wrong in our lives? Or why doesn't he give us desired blessings when we ask for them? He is the one in control. ....Right?
If you're like me, you've asked those questions or similar questions on occasion and if you're also like me, you've just had an epiphany. God is not in control of my life or yours. It's true that he knows what will happen in our lives, but we are ultimately in control of our own destinies, both temporally and spiritually, because we are the ones making the decisions. And while this can be an overwhelming responsibility at times, agency is the very thing that allows us to progress and be like God. He isn't in control of our lives; we are. Yes, things happen to us that we may feel are unfair, but this also means God does not cause those things to happen. The agency of others may be to blame. The natural elements may be to blame. But not God. God gives us control over our choices, as well as control over our reactions to our circumstances...and he is able to do this because of the "lens" of time.
This knowledge should allow us to see God as a merciful Father in Heaven who supplies us with tools for our success (e.g. commandments, scriptures, patriarchal blessings, prophets, etc.), but also provides a way to return to him even after we make mistakes (i.e. the Atonement). The knowledge that God is that merciful Father in Heaven should also increase our faith. While we may not know what will happen in the future (and we don't want to because we want to be agents), our Father does. And as long as we are doing our very best with what we've been given, we will be blessed; if not in this world, then in the world to come.
Time is a blessing. It's a gift. Not only does it provide a means for agency to exist, but it also leads to the development of Godlike attributes. Time is what creates opportunities to develop humility, trust, patience, our talents, obedience, charity, love, diligence, intelligence, wisdom, etc. Without time, how could we ever hope to become like God? While it's easy to feel dissatisfied with the endless, yet transient nature of time, I'm grateful for this supernal gift as it is time itself (and what I choose to do with it) that will shape my eternal destiny.
