A Radical Resolution
I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover God has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. – Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 (NRSV)
My family lives a block from Times Square. From our window, we can see “half” the ball drop. Actually, what we see is the number 20. A tall building blocks our view of the year—so we have to trust that it moved from 2022 to 2023 last night.
I like to think of time as one aspect of God’s creation. It is too wonderful and mysterious to fully comprehend. Sometimes I’ll look out the window and imagine that it’s a different year: remembering a time in the past or dreaming about what it might be like far into the future.
Hey—as long as the year starts with 20, anything is possible with our view of the ball drop. It could be 2001 or 2099 for all we know. Time itself is so broad and deep and wide for me to begin to understand it. I’m in awe of astrophysicists who seem to understand so much more than I might imagine.
God has “made everything suitable for its time.” Today we begin 2023. God has made everything suitable for today. Even the astrophysicists can’t fully know what God has done from the beginning to the end. For today, we can rest in the assurance that God is present with us. You can resolve to be present in the moment today—neither yearning for the past nor planning for the future. Perhaps that’s the most radical of resolutions.
Prayer
Thank you, God, for the mystery of time. Be present with me today as I seek to be present with you. Amen.
About the AuthorAnn is co-pastor of the Greenpoint Reformed Church in Brooklyn (UCC/RCA) and Chaplain for the Fire Department of the City of New York.