Time Flying: Happy New Year and Its Reflections

Robbers Cave Oklahoma, Image by Matt Cook

The only thing that goes faster than a vacation is your Birthday

Time is flying by at a lightning pace, and we struggle to keep up with it. Just recently, I had a birthday, an anniversary, and a vacation that all flew by. I can’t even understand how time can travel that fast. For instance, this vacation is something we’ve been looking forward to and have had on our family calendar for six months. We had talked about it, hyped it up, and it seemed so far away; then you finally get there, and then the next thing you know, you’ve had this entire vacation for a week, and it’s time to go back to your everyday life. However, it was nice to be back in my bed, and I slept better than I have in a week.

Does time travel faster?

On all my trips, I enjoy hunting down old books. Browsing the local antique shops and bookstores I seek out interesting books I can’t find anywhere else. When I’m in an area I don’t know, I love to immerse myself in the lore and culture that made it famous. There are certain things I really like to research and learn about the place. During this trip, I struggled to find places that sold books. We visited Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. It is known that outlaws hid out in these caves back in the early 20th century. It is rich in history: the caves were once home to Native Americans, before the outlaws. Little seems to be written about this area, which amazed me, but I had a hard time finding even a store that carried books.

Sometimes you wonder if people read anymore?

I don’t think this is true, but sometimes I look around and wonder if that is happening.

Many adults are making New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, walk more, put their phones down, and read more. These New Year’s resolutions seem to fuel gym memberships and other pursuits Americans take up this time of year.

For you, reading this post, this is probably just another day. Because we know that it is, we understand that this is not the beginning of the year. We know this is the dead of winter, that this is not a time of life. This is a time of recharging, preparing, and getting ready for the life that lies ahead. Scripture (Exodus 12) tells us the beginning of the year falls around Passover, when the sun returns, life begins again, and the northern hemisphere turns green, the animals have babies, and everything about spring says new life.

But we have allowed ourselves to be hijacked

There’s really no excuse for living in the world we live in. Just do some quick Google searches, and you can find out how calendars have been changed, how they’ve been twisted, how they’ve been bent to fit whatever man’s desire was at the time. We went from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar when we did, we switched at the start of the year. The Gregorian calendar begins in the dead of winter, which also marks the sun’s death and its later reemergence with Ishtar in the spring.

Recently, I watched a teaching Tom Bradford gave on this. And I will paste the link here.

Time is precious.

We invest so much time in things that don’t matter.

Time on our social media, time in movies, and just silly things that, in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t matter. Some of us are going to spend time today watching college football, but you can say that would be one of those things. But there are many distractions in this world, and I think that goes back to what I was saying earlier. That makes this time pass quickly because we have so many ways to fill it. Ancient man didn’t have as many timewasters. He watched the patterns of the sky, the patterns of the animals, the patterns of the birds, and he was in sync with them, walking in harmony with the earth. Here, in this modern world that we live in, we do everything humanly possible to avoid being in harmony with nature. We want creature comforts at all times. We want to eat fruits and vegetables in their seasons, even when it’s not possible to grow them or harvest them. We demand comfort, and we are really addicted to comfort in this country. Take away people’s comfort, and you will have a revolt on your hands pretty quickly.

We all need to think about how we spend our time.

How do we make this year count, even though we know it doesn’t begin until then?

For most of us, we work in a place, and we’re going to have to write down the date and the world that we are passing through.

2026 begins now

How do we make 2026 count?

How do we spend more time with family, with loved ones, with children, with grandchildren?

How do we put our devices down?

How do we commit to spending time on ourselves and the people we love most when one day we will be out of time, and there will be no more words to say to the people around us?

Make it count.

What did the Torah say about the new year?

Exodus 12 (NIV)

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ²“This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb^[a] for his family, one for each household.