Time Walks Casually

If you're one of those people who says "time flies," you might want to just rethink that strategy.

When I was a child, I used to get scared when people told me that "time flies by" when you're an adult. I certainly wasn't ready to relinquish the time I'd been given, so I reserved myself to fight against this "principle" for as long as I could. And then, I got older.

Responsibilities and expectations from numerous directions weighed on my shoulders: work, taxes, family, hobbies, finances, friendships, vacations, more work.

There was nothing necessarily wrong with those things, but I was so immersed in them that I often forgot to appreciate them. I frequently didn't even have time to emotionally process having experienced them before I hit my pillow—exhausted in every way.

With a crook in my neck, I'd wake up with the lights still on, having fallen on sleep on accident...again.

Time—in certain ways—had started flying by for me, and I hated it.

And then I was reminded, through a course of events, the words God spoke to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden:

"Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."

God gave humanity two (simple) responsibilities at the onset of life: care for others (and make new life), and tend the earth (and what we're blessed with). These are why we are here, and I believe we all secretly, deep down, know that to be true.

When we try to fill these areas by other means, working harder and harder to accomplish more things to get a feeling of purpose—we will not succeed, and time flies. That doesn't mean that responsibilities aren't important. Nor does it mean that unless you're caring for others or the earth that you're not doing something valuable. But they're at the core.

How we partake in our work is a easy indicator of our hearts, though.

If we're doing things for ourselves, trying to fill our hearts by working hard, we'll get emotionally spent...and jaded. But if we live simply, time "slows down" from the brisk pace we often see it as, and our emotional, physical, and spiritual lives are enabled to rest. To grow and reap the benefits.

Out of a simple life comes unimaginable depth.

And that depth allows time to slow down in our mind, so we can embrace what sits at our present. All of it, hurtful or happy, painful or empowering. We can live well.

Then life becomes, not a flight, but a refreshing walk in the cool of the day.