Read: Exodus 3:7-10
Read: Isaiah 6:8
I was skimming through an internet news site a couple weeks ago when a bizarre headline caught my eye. Though I didn’t catch it’s exact title, I noticed it said something about the “Time Travel Budget.” My heart suddenly skipped a beat. Had I missed something? Had we finally discovered how to manipulate time? Was I finally going to get that time-traveling DeLorean I’ve wished for since the first time I watched Back to the Future? Hopeful, I clicked the link to check out to see if my lifelong dream was about to become a reality.
Sadly, the “Time Travel Budget” sounds much cooler than it turned out to be. Worse, it has nothing to do with time travel. Doc Brown would be so disappointed…
When experts talk about the “Time Travel Budget,” (or TTB) they’re talking about the idea that humans are programmed to spend a certain amount of time traveling each and every day. As Eric A. Morris wrote in the article:
“Perhaps a product of some primeval need to balance exploration and conquest with hanging around the cave and vegging, the universal TTB is said to drive us all to spend about 1.1 hours per day on the go, regardless of nationality, culture, economic system, or era. In some ways, TTB makes intuitive sense. For example, the automobile has given us the power to cover distances in minutes that would have taken our ancestors hours or even days. Yet we still spend lots of time traveling, making more frequent trips to vastly more distant destinations than our predecessors… A quick check of the American Time Use Survey from 2003-2008 shows that the sample averaged 74 minutes traveling, pretty much right on target with what TTB predicts.”
While not as cool as actual time travel, I found myself wondering if the TTB actually had some validity. Is it true that humans have some innate need for travel? Do we have some directive to always be on the move? Sure enough, as I considered the amount of traveling I do on a day-to-day basis I found that I travel close to 70 minutes a day! Maybe the scientists behind the TTB really are onto something. Maybe we really do have a need to go somewhere.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized we don’t need science to tell us this truth. We instinctively know it. Humans are always on the move. We walk, we drive, we fly. Our history has seen the invention of bicycles, roller skates, segways and skateboards. We want to go places and see things.
This is true on a deeper level, as well. I mean, we all hope our life is going somewhere, don’t we? We live most of our lives with some sort of destination in mind. We want to graduate high school, make it through college, get married, have kids, pay off our debts, take that trip, overcome that obstacle, get that promotion. We’re not content to stay where we are. We want to make ourselves better. We want to reach our goals. We want to go somewhere.
How interesting is it, then, that God’s primary command to those who would serve Him is almost always summed up by the word “Go!” Indeed, that short two-letter word appears a whopping 1,413 times in the biblical text! When God calls people to be His servants, He doesn’t often ask them to stay where they are. Serving God almost always requires us to move. Consider these examples (emphases mine):
Matthew 28:18-20: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Mark 10:21: “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ He said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’”
Mark 16:15: “He [Jesus] said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.’”
Hebrews 6:1-2: “Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”
God calls His people to go. We’re supposed to move from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. We’re supposed to go out into the world and share the good news. The Christian life is a life of movement. If the TTB is to be believed, you’re going to be moving anyway. You might as well go with (and for) God.
Questions to Consider:
What has God sent you into this world to do? How can you take that mission more seriously?
Read Psalm 143:8. What does David pray for in this verse? How can you make this prayer your own?