What is the purpose of time?

Q. What is the purpose of time for us, if God is outside of time? What is our relationship with time?

Laura Klein, via e-mail 


I remember a TV game show from the 1960s called “Supermarket Sweep.” Contestants had a fixed amount of time to load up their shopping carts with the greatest value of items. When the time was up, contestants had to “check out” at the register, and whoever had the highest value of items in the cart won the game. Life is just like that. We each have a limited amount of time, and no one knows for sure just how much time you have. Some have a day, and some have 100 years, but no one has unlimited time.

The purpose of time is the purpose of your life: to do as much good by loving God and serving your neighbor as you can. In this game of life, as St. Paul says: “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win” (2 Cor. 9:24).