Time for a Reality Check

The ball has fallen in Times Square one more time and we have flipped the calendar to 2023. Rather than just exclaim "full steam ahead" and embark on the new year, I suggest we conduct a reality check. I'm not thinking of the kind you might see on a cable news station. The reality check that I propose goes back to the to the reality referenced in the first four words of the Bible which are "In the beginning God..."

When we read in Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God...," we are introduced to ultimate reality, the reality of God. The God of Genesis 1:1 is the self-existent, self-sustaining God who is unchangeable and indestructible in His essence and authority. He is the big "R".

Genesis 1:1 goes on to declare that the God who was in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. In the subsequent verses of Genesis 1, the creation works of God continued. The earth was changed from an empty, formless mass covered in darkness to a life-sustaining planet. God created a firmament, light and other heavenly bodies such as the sun and moon. God separated the waters above the firmament from the waters below and then collected them into seas. Dry land appeared. Then God caused the earth to grow vegetation and fruit trees that would provide the physical nourishment needed by the human body. The seas that God had formed were filled with sea life. Finally, God created Adam and Eve in His own image and likeness. He gave them a stewardship and authoritative responsibility as they intersected and interacted with the creation of which they were a part. This reality that God created for man to inhabit is the little "r".

A true reality check begins with the reality of God, the big "R". At the same time a reality check does not ignore the reality of which we are a living part. Time and dates are tools that we use to intersect and interact with reality. They are not real in the sense of having a fixed, observable existence. The only time that is real is the current moment of your life. As soon as that moment passes it ceases to exist. We can look back on yesterday as a date and record it for the purpose of history, but we cannot reclaim it.

What is the point of all these musings about time, calendars, the big "R" and the little "r"? The point is that we get so caught up in the little "r", being on time and meeting the obligations of the day that we neglect or even deny that there is an ultimate reality who is the unchangeable and indestructible God. We become so enamored with living out our little "r" that the little "r" becomes all that matters. In our celebrations ushering in another New Year and our pursuits of earthy ambitions, we take on an attitude of self-sufficiency.

God is the ultimate reality of all reality. As Acts 17:28 says, "For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'" I sincerely pray for a reality check that will lead us back to God. If we acknowledge and submit to God in repentance and faith, we can then enjoy the reality that He so graciously created for us.