^“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

2 Peter 3:8 NIV

When I was younger, this verse baffled me. How could one day seem so long, yet a thousand years feel like only a single day had passed? While God is certainly on a grander scale of this ‘time warp,’ I now find myself able to relate.

We’ve all said things like time flies, time stood still, today felt long, or the day just FLEW by. Einstein said:

‘Time is relative; its only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing.’

I’m starting to realize this relativity of time more and more as I get older… even more so this month, as I celebrate a wedding anniversary, a (34^th!) birthday, and watch my little girl grow.

In today’s world, we don’t have to wait long for much. We have fast food, instant mashed potatoes, information at our fingertips (gone are the days of the card catalog), and my personal favorite, two day shipping!

Just this week, I bought a pair of shoes for my sister’s wedding.  I don’t know about you, but when I order anything online, I get excited and am ready for it to get there right now!

I immediately started watching for the mail lady, anticipating my items to arrive. While it only took two days (can I just say, I love Amazon Prime!), it still felt like a long time waiting. Of course, the mail lady made her rounds later than usual that day, making the anticipation that much greater. It also didn’t help that the item my husband had ordered (the day after I made my purchase) had already come and was sitting on our porch most of the day, while I not-so-patiently waited for my turn to come. I got my shoes in two days, in what’s called snail mail… as if that’s slow!

This past Wednesday, my husband and I celebrated our nine year wedding anniversary. It certainly doesn’t feel like our wedding was that long ago. On top of that, we had a baby earlier this year, and now she’s about to be seven months old! I feel like it was just yesterday I was in the hospital, scared out of mind, wondering if I could get through it all. When did time start moving so fast? As a kid, a week felt like forever. Now, a year goes by in the blink of an eye.

Why is it that a relatively short time seems so long when we’re waiting? It’s even worse when we find ourselves waiting for something important. Those hours waiting for someone in surgery, those days waiting for test results, those weeks or months waiting for a special occasion, or even years waiting for answered prayers – these can all seem like an eternity when in reality they’re just a blip in the grand scheme of life.

How could time move so slow for those shoes to arrive, yet life zoom on by? Sometimes I sit and look the through the pictures in my phone and see how little my baby girl was just a month ago, two months ago, and it brings tears to my eyes. It’s overwhelming to me  the speed at which life seems to be passing by, but it’s also comforting to know God knows what it’s like.

In the passage from 2nd Peter, it’s talking about how people will wonder when the coming of Christ will be (if at all) because so much time had passed. It goes on to say:

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

I’d like to think the Scripture is trying to tell us that spending a thousand joyous years with His children goes by so quickly – much like it does with us – but just waiting one day for a lost soul to find grace feels like a thousand years. Thankfully, God is patient!

When we’re waiting, we want time to hurry. When we’re not waiting, we want it to slow down. The thing about time, is that we think we have so much of it. We know time flies, yet we feel like there’s always some left. The Bible warns, finishing the Scripture.

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” (2 Peter 3:10)

The truth is, all we really have is now. As time continues to pass, what are we doing to make it worth the most? I can only pray that the God who understands will help me be patient while I wait, and that I make most of every moment I have, while I have it.