This concept is posed in the movie "In Time," the 2011 thriller with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. It involves a man named Will Salas, a twenty-eight year old young man trying to make it through the day. He never has enough time to do anything. His fifty year old mother doesn't look a day over twenty-five...but age doesn't matter in this society. It is the hours and minutes she has on her clock that count. So she tries to live every second of it as if it were her last. For who knows, it just might be.
Contrast that with Matthew Bomer's character. His body and mind feel like one hundred and twenty-five, but he has too many hours on his clock. Since his body doesn't age beyond that of a twenty-five year old, and nothing says 0:00, he keeps on living. However, his character WANTS to die. He says "your mind can be spent, even if your body is not. We want to die. We need to." Matthew Bomer then precedes to transfer his time over to Justin Timberlake and now, the roles are reversed. Matthew can die and Timberlake has hours at his disposal (which causes people to go after him, people who want the hours for themselves...but I'm not here to give a movie review. That will come later =D)
As human beings, we lived with this warped sense of time. We do feel as if we have days at our disposal; we can put off until tomorrow anything that we don't want to do. We are content to sit on our behinds and allow life to pass us by--we will catch up to it at some point. Only here is the problem: none of us know how long we have on our "clock." We don't know how many years or days are to be called our own.
In "In Time", Olivia Wilde's character is always rushing--and her most poignant scene comes as she rushes to her son so they can spend time together. She understood that she needed to make every second count; they could be her last. It's actually quite a philosophy to live by. She walked briskly; why dawdle when you use valuable time to get where you need to go? Those little moments add up into valuable ones.
We don't live forever. We weren't meant to. If the Lord had wanted His creation to live forever, He would have made the Fountain of Youth an actuality, or anti-aging creams more effective, or goodness, put anti-aging chromosomes into our DNA. But he didn't. He made us mortal beings. He alone is God; it isn't our job to play that role or have that capability in our hands. Regardless of what the world might say, that fact stands true.
It is my personal belief that the Lord wants us to not waste the life He blessed us with. He gave us breath for a reason--to be instruments of His glory and to enjoy every single minute we have been placed on this earth. It's funny how a movie can remind you of such deep truths. I am resolved to live each day to the fullest.
Will you join me?
