I think about time a lot at the beginning of a new year. How do I use time? How do I manage it? Or, well, does time use and manage me? 

I have regrets about my undone to-do lists and missed opportunities of the past. I want to get everything done, but I never have enough time to do it. That leaves me with only two options. 

1. I must be infinite. I must be better than the best superhero, able to do everything, be everywhere, and get it all done. Since this is impossible, the better choice is . . .
2. I let Jesus be infinite. He’s everywhere and over everything. He’s eternal. But he became finite! Limited. Subject to time’s control.

Time kept Jesus in Mary’s womb for about nine months. Time initiated puberty. Time called him to Jerusalem, where he suffered and died and then rose.

As we try hard to be infinite but cannot, the One who is infinite became finite, became limited, a servant of time. Why? This Bible verse says it all: “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law” (Galatians 4:4,5).

Jesus served time to redeem us. We who are finite do not need to become infinite because Jesus, who is infinite, became finite to save us, to forgive us, and to set us free.