As humans developed language and explored concepts more abstract than the physical world, they started to ask questions about the nature of Time. What is responsible for the passage of Time? Why does it exist at all? The way they first saw it, something outside of Time must be responsible for creating it and moving it along. Some kind of God of Time. The Time Being.
When speaking without certainty, people began to reference the Time Being, sloshing a little bit of language on the ground as an offering to God. “Are we safe here?” one might ask. “We are safe, for the Time Being,” another might answer. This wasn’t meant to convey temporal safety; it was a plea to God that the uncertain statement would be true. A little sprinkling of superstition into language, like “knock on wood”, or “God willing and the creek don’t rise”, or “Inshallah”.
Over the ages, this meaning was lost. You could see how that might happen — God seems to grant the request at first, but eventually changes his mind. The hoped-for safety (in my example) lasted for a while but not forever. And later generations saw this pattern repeat, so that when they heard the elders give answers “for the Time Being” and interpreted them as temporary, rather than aspirational.
I think that God doesn’t mind that the original meaning was lost. I think he finds it funny. So, I suggest that while we make the etymology wider known out of respect, I don’t propose trying to go back to the older meaning. I think we should keep it the way it is — for the Time Being.
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