Depending on where you are located in our country, your daily schedule has been altered for at least the past six weeks. When the novel coronavirus reached the United States, it didn’t take long for schools and churches to close. Most of us have been living a different normal for almost two months, and time has become a construct with fuzzy boundaries. The flexible nature of time has been studied by physicists since Albert Einstein developed his Theory of General Relativity in 1915. His theory is meant to give further understanding to the way gravity impacts time. 

A recent discovery in space

In April, scientists discovered more evidence within our galaxy that confirms Einstein’s 105-year-old theory. A star, called S2, orbits the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, but it’s the shape and motion of S2 that drew their attention. It circles in an elliptical and forward motion, rotating over time to form a rosette shape around the black hole. For Einstein, the larger the mass of an object, the more it bends the fabric of the space-time continuum and the stronger its effects are on nearby objects. The slower you move through space, the faster you move through time. 

General relativity and faith 

S2 orbits around the black hole much like our faith orbits around God. The more significance God holds in our lives, the more effect it has on our faith, sending us into forward motion. Lately time has been doing weird things: March felt like it would never end, but April seemed to fly by in a blur. Sleep patterns have been disrupted, and each day feels eerily similar to the last. The calendars we use to stay organized break up days and months into equally sized units of time, but what do we do when those units of time don’t feel equal anymore? Today’s issue reminds us it is good news that the God we worship created time, but when time becomes irrelevant, what impact does that leave on our understanding of God? 

Question of the day: What has your daily life looked like since quarantine began?
Focal scriptures: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Philippians 3:7-16; Leviticus 23:37-38

For a complete lesson on this topic visit LinC.