From Everlasting to Everlasting

Lord, you have been our help, generation after generation. Before the mountains were born, before you birthed the earth and the inhabited world - from forever in the past to forever in the future, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2)

Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day. 
(Isaac Watts, from "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past")

The movie director Richard Linklater has done some amazing things connecting film, the human experience and time. His Before Sunset trilogy, which looks at the lives of two people, are each made a decade apart. The movies follow small slivers of their lives as they age, make mistakes, and search for meaning. These are characters who just happen to be exactly my age. In the lines of their faces and the gray touches in their hair and his goatee I cannot help by see myself.

Linklater has gone another step melding time and the human experience with his latest film Boyhood. In one picture he has followed the life of an American family, filming over the course of thirteen years. Together, we follow the "boy" as he moves from six to eighteen and witness his physical changes as his soul matures.  We see the parents age and can relate... because time has moved us down that ever rolling stream as well.

Scripture reminds us that as time marches on, God remains constant. Psalm 90 poetically paints the picture for us. Speaking toward God, the author observes: because in your perspective a thousand years are like yesterday past, like a short period during the night watch (v.4). We get so caught up in the drama of our day or week we forget how we play just a small part of a much bigger story. For some, a little perspective can weigh us down. I'm sure that many come out of Linklater's movies asking what's its all about and why does anything matter?

Faith's perspective, however, is liberating and not a weight upon us. Knowing the infinite God who has been revealed to us in Christ, frees us from the minutia of the tick-tock-constant worries and dreads of life and opens our eyes to the Kingdom of God which is at hand. Our walk in faith, our spiritual exercises of worship and prayer, generosity and compassion, give us wisdom that allows all of our moments to matter.

Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart. (Psalm 90:12)

As we move into the busyness of fall, don't drown in the ever rolling stream. Christ has given us the life-raft of faith. Upon this sailing vessel we can rest assured and wisely live as the people God created us to be.