WORDS SYDNEY BOOTH

When ?
Growing up, my family would make occasional road
trips to southern Colorado to visit my grandparents.
The drive is about five hours depending on road
conditions. As a kid, it was torture. Cooped up in
the back of the car with my younger brother had me
asking my mom “Are we there yet?” every half hour.
A common response shot over her shoulder was
always: “We get there when we get there.”

As human beings, one of our biggest questions we

ask in life is “when?”, or “Are we there yet?” These
questions have childish connotations, but I find
myself asking them, or at least a different version
of them, every single day. When will I make time to
take this class? When will I finally be successful?
When am I going to hit all of the important life
milestones everyone is striving to hit like getting
married and having a family? When will I finally
get to lead a cute, comfy life absent of all fear and
insecurity?

The question of “when” in and of itself is a way of

quantifying time in a way that is useful to us. Num-
bers on a clock don’t mean anything unless we have
a deadline, and the boxes on a calendar aren’t useful
without numbers in the top right corner. We build
our lives around time, but we are powerless against
it. We want to know when the sand in the hourglass
will run out and we want to believe it won’t be be-
fore we get to achieve everything we want in life.

What we don’t find in scripture is a date.

6 TAUG
 WORDS SYDNEY BOOTH

... we see that the important

questions in life don’t start with
“when.”
It seems like they begin with “how?”
What we don’t find in scripture is a date. Rather, we find
a promise. Paul, writing to the church says in Phillipians
1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good
work in you will carry it on to completion until the day
of Christ Jesus.” We know from other passages such as
Matthew 24:36 that Jesus didn’t exactly circle a date on a
calendar for his second coming--no one knows when that
will happen. It’s along the same lines as the fact that none
of us know exactly how many grains of sand we have left in
the hourglass. What we do know is that Jesus Christ won’t
leave us where we’re at. We can still accomplish so much
for the kingdom despite the fact that time will remain an
enigma to all of us during our short lives.

Certainly, though, there is merit in being aware of our time

on this earth. Psalm 90:12 tells us to “number our days” and
Ephesians 5:16 tells us to “make the most of every opportu-
nity” during our short time on this earth. So where exactly
is the line? How do we live in light of eternity while trust-
ing that we don’t need to be bogged down by the question
of “when” and the ever-ticking clock that is time itself?

I think Jesus answered this question best during the

Sermon on the Mount. In it he states: “But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will
be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about to-
morrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has
enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:33-34)

To me, this verse is how our Savior reassures us that “we

get there when we get there.” From this verse, we see that
the important questions in life don’t start with “when.” It
seems like they begin with “how?” How can we seek first
his kingdom and his will for us?

Rather, we find a promise.

TAUG 7