ONE SECOND TO LIVE

Words Noah Woo

“Make a Google calendar.” After several

months of being pestered by friends who
wanted to snoop around my daily sched-
ule more than they genuinely desired
that I live an organized life, I gave in. At
first, I didn’t think much about the app. I
would add in my course schedule for the
semester and be content. But gradually,
I began relying more and more on this
electronic schedule, adding in my travel
plans, my hangouts, and even my weekly
church services. And I continued actively
using it, detailing my entire life in this
one app. But why? Because I felt peace
and security in having my future laid out
in an organized manner and in marching
to the beat of the notifications from my
phone.

“the only unit of time that I could truly

be confident in was the one second that I
was living in”
And yet somewhere down
this uniform and well-structured path,
I ran into an obstacle that caused
discord in my peaceful, repetitive life.
I was struck by what James writes to
the church in James 4:
13 Come now, you who say, “Today
or tomorrow we will go into such and
such a town and spend a year there
and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet
you do not know what tomorrow will
bring. What is your life? For you are a
mist that appears for a little time and
then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought
to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live
and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you
boast in your arrogance. All such
boasting is evil.
Arrogance? I was being accused of
arrogance! But for what? For claiming
to know what tomorrow held? But
why couldn’t I know what tomorrow
held? It was because of this last
question that I felt the rhythm of my
calendarized life slow to a standstill, as
I was confronted by an inquiry I initially
thought to be absurd. Why wouldn’t I
know what tomorrow held? Probability,
I thought to myself. What are the odds
that a natural disaster prevents me from
going to classes tomorrow? How minis-
cule are the chances that some tragedy
causes me to discard my day’s plans?
Even as I gave this answer, I felt my re-
sponse grate harshly against a different
reality: a reality where there is a God
who had not disclosed the hour of His
second coming to me. A reality where
there is a God who had warned me that
He would come like a thief, unexpect-
edly, and had therefore cautioned me
to stay sober-minded. No, I didn’t know
what the following day held. And after
reflecting upon the reality of living

TAUG 11
 Having been brought out of my
thoroughly-scheduled life by the Word
of God, I thought it reasonable that the
same source would also hold the answer
to how I should spend my time.
under an omniscient, infinite God as a mortal, finite man, I found
that the only unit of time that I could truly be confident in was the
one second that I was living in.

How then should I live? Having been brought out of my

thoroughly-scheduled life by the Word of God, I thought it rea-
sonable that the same source would also hold the answer to how
I should spend my time. In studying Jesus’ prayer to the Father, I
found a fascinating statement: “And this is eternal life, that they
know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Jesus equated life to knowing God: in the process of searching for
an answer, I had only found another mystery. Having deemed that
there was no shortcut to what I was looking for around understand-
ing this verse, I began focusing on what Jesus had said. And later, in
a moment of clarity, I found my answer in a Psalm: “You have said,
‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’”
This was the answer that I found: that God is a God who desires to
be sought after, that He commands His people to seek His face, to
seek the things on His heart, and to live in response to what we dis-
cover. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, builds upon the Psalm-
ist’s verse and establishes this action of seeking God as the highest
value: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” This was what I found that
I had to build everything in my life on top of, because Paul counted
not half his life, but his entire life as loss for the value of knowing
Christ. This is the fulfillment of that one second that I have, to
seek God and to find Him, because this is what Jesus revealed as
life abundant, life fully-satisfied, and life forever. Why do the goals
that we pursue, like relationships, financial success, and academics
fail to fully and perpetually satisfy us? Paul implies here that we, as
creation, are fully satisfied when we accept our Creator’s original
design for us, which is to be intimately in a personal relationship

God is a God with Him.

who desires to
This is easier said than done. Living out the life that Paul
painted, one devoted to knowing Jesus more, is too hard. Were the
odds against me in this fight? Had I been fighting wrongly? Had I
been fighting at all? Paul gives insight into “making the best use of

be sought after
time” in his letter to the church of Ephesus: “And do not get drunk
with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” In an
entertainment-centered culture like our own, where we have access
to no shortage of media to spend our hours on, it is not a difficult
task to fill our time. The question that Paul answers is not whether
we are spending our time or not, since we are always spending our

12 TAUG
time in some way; it is how meaningfully we are spending our time. And there
is a way of spending our seconds that Paul goes as far as calling being “drunk
with wine.” What is this lifestyle that Paul compares to those of drunkards? He
reveals in the very same verse: it is a lifestyle that keeps you from being “filled
with the Spirit.” As followers of Christ, we are called to delight in the law of
the Lord, and to meditate on it day and night. But do we place meditating
on God’s words as our highest value? In my own life, there is temptation
to mindlessly spend large chunks of time watching Youtube or scrolling
through social media. But if we choose to instead spend hours upon hours And Should we
grow weary of
watching Youtube, or binging shows on Netflix, or scrolling through
social media, the voice of the entertainment culture, the world around
us, is what will fill our minds. How can we be filled with the Spirit, when

the struggles of
we refuse to ingest the good and life-giving words of God, and instead
choose to be drunk on the words, the values of the world? So this
is the battle, then, that we must fight to make the best use of our
time: flee from the wine of the world, which tempts us to become
addicted to spending the seconds of our lives in vanity, and seek to
fill our lives with what is pleasing to the Spirit.
this life, we are able
to remind ourselves
The conclusion of Ecclesiastes, a book most known
for its message on the vanity of a worldly life and on the
that we already know
the end of the story for
reality of there being a time for all matters, is also an apt
conclusion for this topic: “The end of the matter; all has
been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for
this is the whole duty of man.” The instruction for how
we are to spend our time is clear in Scripture, but what
will keep us from disobeying it? In Exodus, when God
those marked by Christ.
descends with fire on Mount Sinai and the Israelites
are trembling, Moses gives insight into the fear of
God what it means to fear God: “Do not fear, for God
has come to test you, that the fear of him may be
before you, that you may not sin.” In the midst of
all the vain ways men have come up with to spend
time, the writer of Ecclesiastes understands that
only the fear of God will cause us to walk on
the narrow path. When we see God for who
He is—as Holy, righteous, just, and impartial
with sin—the holy fear of Him causes us to
despise and shun the sinful vanity that the
world tempts us to. Truly, to fear God is the
“end of the matter” in the middle of a world
that tempts us to meaninglessness with
its empty promises. And should we grow
weary of the struggles of this life, we
are able to remind ourselves that we
already know the end of the story for
those marked by Christ: “And the city
has no need of sun or moon to shine
on it, for the glory of God gives it
light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”
If this is our ending, then what
are the trials of this life? A short
moment in time, in the light of a
promise that spans for eternity.

TAUG 13
TAUG 13