Those with the greatest view of time are those best able to use and enjoy the time they have. Life is short, but we are called to rise to our full potential, making the most of it and seizing each day. Within the biblical view of time and history, life offers meaning and opens prospects whose significance far outstrips its shortness. Time is more than cyclical, and its linear progression forms a story in which we come to play a significant and responsible part. History is singular and we are significant, so all that we are and all that we do is consequential. We leave our marks upon the face of time, and our efforts are not in vain. The world has gone wrong, evil and injustice are everywhere, but God invites us to be coauthors of our own lives and partners with him in the wider global reconciliation, repair, and restoration that are underway. So as we strive for freedom and justice in human affairs, we care for our neighbors as well as ourselves. The hope of all that is coming gives strength to what we are doing, just as what we are doing will be a sign of all that we believe is coming.
Our little lives may be incomplete, our grandest visions may be unfulfilled, and our best actions may seem no more than small and inconsequential. But for people of faith who are visionary “dreamers of the day,” our actions into time always look beyond the horizon of history to that great day when the widespread ruins of all the recurring versions of the City of Man will be eclipsed by the splendor of the City of God.
In the meantime, let us seize the day, this day and every day, and seize the day fully, confidently and hopefully—but not as self-celebrating, grandstanding mini-gods on the earth. Let us seize the day humbly as we walk before God, endeavoring to read the signs of the times, seeking always to serve God’s purposes in our generation, and working together with all who place their hope in the great messianic Day of the Lord that is coming.
Taken from Carpe Diem Redeemed by Os Guinness. Copyright (c) 2019 by Os Guinness. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. https://www.ivpress.com/carpe-diem-redeemed
