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According to a recent survey in North Rhine-Westphalia, 45.5% of respondents stated that they have too little time for themselves: too little time to rest, for friends, for personal interests. Time plays a prominent role in our lives. Yet time is not actually a reliable quantity. Since Einstein, at the latest, we have known that time is relative and can vary depending on where it is measured. The meaning of the fact that time can even be bent is something that physicists and other specialists can address.

In the Bible, we read that there is a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3), and thus, everyone has their time. Studies show that even newborns have “their time.” There are infants who take their time breast-feeding, while others feed quickly and rather hastily. If this timing doesn’t match that of their parents — for example, if the mother or father is of the exact opposite orientation — the children learn very quickly, adapt, and adjust. Supposedly, children who have had to adjust are less balanced in their early years than those whose parents have adjusted.

We, too, are constantly adapting to time pressures. Those still working have to meet deadlines, and those already retired supposedly have no time left either. When pressure builds up in a closed system, a suitable expansion tank must be present, otherwise catastrophe ensues: the boiler bursts. Where is our “time expansion tank”?

“My time is in your hands (Psalm 31:5). To what extent are we willing or able to follow this conviction of the Psalmist? When we place our time in God’s hands, we relieve it of pressure. The hymn of the same name continues: “…now I can be calm…” Being calm in God is an excellent “balance container.” I don’t have to chase after appointments; I can live with him in God’s creation, despite and with all that needs to be done. Then I experience that time is relative: the appointment remains, but I can deal with it relatively relaxed. Maybe not always, but I wish for all of us: perhaps more and more often. Oh yes, we’ll get back that lost hour from last Sunday in ten months, guaranteed.