Running out of Time

A near death experience early in life changes one’s view on the rest of it. Since mine, I have always believed, as I still do, that I will die young. I don’t know how young, but I’m not sure it matters. I’m running out of time, and there’s no sense calculating how much I have left.

I’m already twenty-six. James Dean was dead by now. One more year and I’ll be as old as Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, and Kurt Cobain.

What do I have to show for my twenty-six years of life on earth? I write for a smalltime blog, spent five weeks in L.A., seventeen days in New York City, and self-published two books circulated among family and friends. I need to achieve something fast. I’m running out of time to build my life into significance and create a lasting legacy. Desperation fuels my impatience. Whatever beauty, energy, and health I have won’t last much longer. I need to live while I’m young, but time rushes by so quickly and life is terrifyingly fragile and uncertain. 

We will all die, and in a sense, we will all die young. There will never be enough time to be everything we want to be or do everything we want to do.

I don’t know why any of us have the unimaginable privilege and pain of being alive on earth, or how long any of us have left. All we can see from our seat in the orchestra is our small, insignificant part, which will be badly played and cut short. But the Great Conductor is crafting all of this into a symphony too majestic for us to comprehend. Occasionally, we catch the sound of a melody line, but from where we sit, it often sounds dissonant and chaotic. 

Our hope is not in our ability to hear the music or understand the symphony. Certainly not in our ability to write our own notes, or our skill in playing. He will craft His song through us in spite of us and we will play until He is finished with us and not before. We will not live long enough to do all we want to do, but we will live long enough to do all we are meant to do. 

“A person’s days are determined; the number of his months depends on You. You have set limits he can not pass.”* 

Spoken to God, these are among the most ancient words humans have retained. For ages, we have passed down this reminder of our vulnerability, but also of our security. We will die, but we will not die before our time. God knows and has ordained the day of our death. We will live till then.

J.

*Job 14:5

May 25, 2021