The Importance of Time
God is the author of time. He invented it. There was a time when time was not. Then God created time and space. He ordered His creation in the span of six days and rested on the seventh. Thus the rhythm of our week is woven into the fabric of the world. God promised Noah that "while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22). God gives us a framework. There is a stability to life. We can count on time--year after year, month after month, day after day, hour after hour. This brings structure to our lives. Time becomes something that we order our lives around. The fourth commandment states: "Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God." Work and rest become a daily and weekly and yearly rhythm. Time is the beat to this rhythm. The teacher in Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there is a time for everything: 2 a time to be born, ...