Steve West - Perspective of a thousand years

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, July 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Some of our ancestors in the Bible lived almost a thousand years. Living that long might just change your perspective on some things. Here’s WORLD commentator Steve West.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: Our oldest recorded ancestor, Methuselah, lived 969 years. That's a lot of clocks to punch, meals to prepare, grass to cut. Even Adam lived 930 years—likely feeling deep regret over his tragic mistake.

If we lived as long as these ancestors, I wonder how our perspectives would change. When you live nearly a thousand years, you might begin to have some sense of how eternity might feel. Things that seem urgent would become less time-sensitive. Fix the leaky faucet? Not now, I’d say. I’ll get to it, next year, maybe.

Of course, because of sin, a long life not lived unto God could just be centuries to do evil—to cheat, and lie, and steal. At the very least, it could be a long and tiresome existence–living out seemingly endless mundane moments. No wonder God limited our days to 120 years.

Ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos, from which we get our word chronology, and kairos, for a moment when time seems to stand still. We’re all very familiar with chronos time. Calendars and clocks are ever-present reminders. Yet we know kairos as well. We don’t know how we will experience time in heaven, but I suspect eternity may be more kairos time: more time to reflect on God's purposes in the world, to remember what matters, to listen for God's voice. More timeless moments.

On one family vacation I recall when my wife and I and our then young children were all laughing and enjoying each other. In that precious moment, time seemed to stand still, and I thought, this must be what Heaven is like. But eventually someone said something and someone else responded harshly, and just like that, the spell was broken. Back to chronos time. Pack it up. It’s time to go.

There's a short story by Wendell Berry called "Making It Home.” A young soldier, Art Rowanberry, is returning from the Great War to his home in the hills of Kentucky. As he walks, he is pondering all he has experienced as well as what he might find at home. Coming over the last hill before home, he sees his father and young brother plowing the field, and they finally see him too. After a few hand shakes and repeated "well now"s from his father, Berry ends with this:

“And then he heard his father's voice riding up in his throat as he had never heard it, and he saw that his father had turned to the boy and was speaking to him: ‘Honey, run yonder to the house. Tell your granny to set on another plate. For we have our own that was gone and has come again.’”

Time stopped right then for that father, seeing his son he thought was dead. No clock was ticking. Time was irrelevant. His son was home.

So it may one day be for us all.

I’m Steve West.

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