Episode Transcript  

One

“The Time Is Made Short”

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul says something that could be interpreted as either scary, or relieving.

He says: “The time is made short.”

Now that’s a crucial thing to remember, because the shortness of the time we have left will help us fight the two biggest obstacles to spiritual progress, namely:

Discouragement

Complacency

But first of all, how do we know that the “time has been made short”?

Two

The Perspective of Eternity

No matter how much time we have left in this life, we know it’s not much compared to the eternity that awaits us.

Infinity goes on forever. 

Compared to infinity, it doesn’t matter how many grains of sand are left in the hourglass – pretty soon the grains will have fallen, and everything – everything that follows, forever and ever and ever – will be the result of what you did during those few seconds, hours, days and years that the glass started out with.

Just objectively speaking, there’s not that much time left. And when it’s over, it’s over.

So – if the time has been made short – how is that supposed to influence the way we live now?

Three

Fighting Despair

For one thing, the shortness of the time we have left should help us resist despair and discouragement.

We get discouraged and despair when we feel like we’re just too tired. Like we can’t go on.

But just think – we don’t actually have to hang in there that much longer. Just a few more days – a couple of years, maybe.

Then it’ll all be over.

So if feel like you just can’t face another day of a difficult marriage, or a mental illness, or a physical disability

If it feels like you’re totally wiped out – like you just can’t keep going.

Take heart! Remember, the time is short! 

Pretty soon, the struggle will be over. 

Don’t give up now, not when you’re so close to the end.

Get up, and keep fighting. It won’t be long now.

Four

Fighting Complacency

The fact that there’s not much time left should keep us from despairing. But it should also keep us from flaking out from a false sense of self-satisfaction.

Because there’s not much time left – and we do have a lot we need to get done, spiritually speaking.

Time is the universal medium of change. In other words, time exists to allow for changes to happen.

And a lot needs to change in our lives.

We have a lot of ugliness to transform into virtue; a lot of selfishness to transform into love; a lot of intemperance to transform into self-discipline.

There’s a lot that needs to change, and not a lot of time for those changes to happen.

And this is all the time we have left – from now till death.

It’s literally now or never. 

We make our mark, we make our impact, we shape our destiny right now.

Think of it this way: 

Imagine someone gave you a lot of money, but every second, a portion of that money disappeared. Every second, a portion of that money just evaporated into thin air.

What would be the logical thing to do? Obviously, it would be to maximize the money by spending it as quickly and efficiently as you could on things that would last.

Well, the same thing goes for time. The Lord has given us a lump sum of time – we don’t know exactly how much, but we do know that every second some of it is disappearing into thin air. It’s evaporating. It’s melting away. The time is made short..

So spend your time as efficiently as you possibly can on the things that will last.

Spend your time – however much you have left – on the stuff of eternity.

Because if you just sat on a bag of money that disappeared bit by bit, pretty soon the money would be gone, and you’d have nothing to show for it.

And that’s what will happen if you flake out on the spiritual life. Pretty soon, your bag of time will be gone – and what will you have to show for it?

Five

“If”

Rudyard Kipling’s most famous poem is called “if” – and the very last line of the poem goes like this: 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty-seconds worth of distance run

Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it

And what is more, you’ll be a man, my son.

Just fill the minute with real running. And you can have the earth, says Kipling. And you’ll be a man.

So too, we say, just fill the time with real spiritual effort

Don’t give up, and don’t flake out

And you won’t just get the earth – you’ll get heaven.

You won’t just be a man – you’ll be a saint.

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