Wednesday 21 December 2016

What's A Year Got To Do With It?


I have a small Samsung smartphone. I don't particularly like big phones partly because they are clumsy to carry about but also because it appears I am some kind of phone monster who makes them to run for cover! Sadly, I have lost quite a number of them. Hahaha! Nevertheless, it's amazing what you can do with your phone. Outside making and receiving calls and engaging in social networking, my Samsung galaxy has become my trusted journaling companion. Often, lying on my bed, I just start journaling. Of the several note-taking apps out there, Evernote is my favorite. So a couple of days ago while journaling and thinking about how fast my year seemed to have unfolded and also wrapped up, I got to wondering about what's really in a year? I mean like what's a year really worth? What's the value of a year?

Hmmm, that's a tough one, and maybe somewhat philosophical too if not hypothetical to answer! Obviously a year is such an important unit of time so much so that around it, we reference history, schedule events, plan activities, measure performances and attain milestones and pursuits. It goes without saying that there are 12 months, 52 weeks, and 365 days, or 366 days in the case of a leap year, in a year. This breaks down even further to 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes or 31,536,000 seconds in a year for those given to details. Okay, is that all there is to the time-year, the passage of 31,536,000 seconds?
No doubt there are several perspectives to a year to look at. For example in family terms, all things being equal, a year is how long it takes for a woman to conceive, gestate, deliver a baby and nurse it till it's 3 months old! Likewise give a year to a good teacher in a setting of formal education and you have a well-taught student eligible for promotion to the next class, subject, of course, to them passing their examinations. For those engaged in competitive league sports, it takes a season, the sporting year, to determine the overall champion or number one athlete who has amassed the most score of points by recording the highest run of victories in a given sports event.
Similarly, for a farmer dependent on the weather, the traditional farming year would describe the timespan covering the cropping season - period of planting, cultivating and tending, harvesting and resting the land till the next cropping cycle. In the business world where time is often monetized in relation to productivity, goods and services, your balance sheet gives an indication of how well your financial year has been.
The point really is that the value of one's year cannot be isolated from their pursuitspossibilitiespotentials and even their worldview. The year just like other units of time is equally available to everyone. It’s how it is managed that makes the difference between having a mediocre year or having a remarkable year. Some push their year to the maximum in the process exploring and harnessing the possibilities and potential it offers. Others do nothing much but to just drift along with the year’s unstoppable wheels of motion. It seems like if opportunities were different sizes of pictures, then the year would be a canvass, a platform, to paint our desired pictures. If time is money, the year is a type of blank cheque to cash in on. And even more, if time is life, the year is a privilege to live, explore and harness it.
Imagine for a moment we try to look at a year from the standpoint of the ultimate time giver, God, who is also Creator of both space and time as well as their regulator by doing some mathematical reasoning. It is on record that God created the universe, the visible and invisible world of the Sun, the Moon, the stars and the Earth and all the living things, complex systems and laws operating in them in 6 days. It follows that He can do so over and over again at least 52 times in a year, if not an incredible number of times more, assuming God chooses not to go into universe manufacturing since He already has a prototype universe and doesn't have to create the next universes from scratch. God, by the way, has shown that He is the Ultimate Manufacturer and a Master at mass production by configuring almost everything living to naturally produce after their kind on Earth. So supposing 10,000 years have passed since the first universe was created and God, since then, has been producing universes at the rate of 52 per year, He would have rolled out 520,000 universes to date.
I believe He could have done so but there appears to be no reason to do so since our universe has not yet outlived its lease and usefulness.
Can you imagine for a moment the space needed to warehouse 520,000 universes! Pheeew, mind-blowing right! With God all things are possible!
I am blessed by how the Scriptures helps us to appreciate time through God’s eyes. To respond to those who questioned God's time consciousness and capacity to fulfill His promise of creating a new universe that is sin-proof, righteousness-friendly and perpetuating, Apostle Peter writes "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8-10). While not an attempt to measure God's abilities, I am thinking it’s not out of place to deduce from Paul’s statement that what would take a united workforce of the whole of mankind that has ever existed 365,000 days (1000 years) to do, God would do the same in one day! Wow such omnipotence! Talk about a specialist in time optimization and maximization! Definitely not only is our perspective of time different from His, God's ability is also not defined by nor constrained by time.
For this and many more reasons, I celebrate God, my Year and Life Giver. I am grateful to God for the outgone 8760 hours. I am thankful for the opportunity to have lived the last 525,600 minutes and the prospects and privilege to look forward to another 31,536,000 seconds. I am grateful for family and friends that add colour, sometimes not the bright ones, to life. Hahaha.
It's my birthday. Thank you, Lord Jesus!

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