Tonight over the dinner table, Karissa asked us a question. “Is one minute a very long time?” she asked with an inquisitive heart. I could have given her a technical answer by having the whole family count 60 seconds and then tell her that we just went through one minute. But I decided to respond by saying, “It all depends on the context.”
I then proceeded to give her various scenarios to think through.
One minute of playing with your toys is not very long. But one minute of holding your breath underwater will be very long.
One minute of spending time with your friends is not very long. But standing outside in this cold weather will be very long.
I don’t know if she fully grasped the concept but as I was sharing some of these things with her and the boys, it made me think about the importance of perspective and context. It is so easy to look at situations in our lives as if it is a long period of time, but in reality it is not long at all.
Why is it that we can spend time doing something and not notice how much time has passed by and then on that same note, spend time doing something else and it feels like eternity? Is it an issue of passion or purpose? Maybe it is more of the issue of perspective?
There are a lot of things that we will be called to do that we might not really enjoy, but can we still do it faithfully knowing that the time will pass and then God will call us to do something else. Then I was thinking about the importance of the meaning of being “faithful.”
I have shared this many times before but “being faithful” requires a lot of faith (being full of faith). When we know that there are some things that we need to be faithful to but it is hard to follow through on it, then we need to pray for greater faith. When our “faith” is “full” then we will be able to obediently do what God is calling us to do even though we do not know how long it will take for us to fulfill it.
So, how long is a minute? Well, I guess it all depends.