One of the most frustrating things on this earth is time.
You can’t rush it any more than you can skip over it or slow it down. It also
seems that time is a tool.
We’re told in Scripture that we can use time to:
- · Make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:5)
- · Wait on the Lord (Isaiah 40:31)
- · Grow in understanding (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
- · Fulfill the good works prepared in advance (Ephesians 2:10)
These things don’t happen without time. Healing doesn’t come
when time doesn’t pass. The best of friendships don’t develop in a moment. Life’s
greatest and worst experiences –birth, marriage, death, the fulfilling of
dreams- all these things take time.
We’re a generation (or two, or three) that loves shortcuts.
We don’t wait in lines, we book online. We don’t sit praying and caring
patiently about each other for months while we wait for the next letter to arrive.
Instead, we text and get it done.
Achievement-driven, our lives are packed with plans and
goals. Rather than doing something well, we qualify ourselves by citing how
much we do overall. To be “busy” is a backwards badge of honor.
Full of ambition and zeal, it can often be said of us that “they are zealous for God, but their zeal is
not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God
and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness”
(Romans 10:2-3.)
I’m guilty of this. I’m guilty of writing –even this post-
in haste. I want to produce good works for the Lord. My desire in blogging, in
writing at all, is that I share the words He gives me. Yet so often I don’t
wait for His Word to teach me first.
I suspect I’m not the only one whose passion gets in the way
of the stuff that time spent by the Lord is made up of, stuff like patience,
listening, understanding, humility, and reliance wholly on Him.
Have you ever set a deadline for God? Not “God do this by
this time,” but “God, if you haven’t come through by this time, I’ll know it
can’t work out so I’ll take that as a sign to go with the other option.” That’s
what we say to the Lord who created time!
It’s simple evidence of how, to us, a day can feel like a
thousand years of weight while to God, “a
thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a
watch in the night. –Psalm 90:4. So fleeting, so simple.
Time is no constraint upon the Lord or His plans. It is yet
another thing created, as in Genesis when He separated the night from the day
to “let them serve as signs to mark
sacred times, and days and years” (Genesis 1:14.)
Put in the time. Take the time. Use it wisely. Because you
and I are free to do so. You and I are free to believe that: “there is a time and a way for everything,
although man's trouble lies heavy on him” (Ecclesiastes 8:6.) It’s heavy right now. Time marks out
plenty that we’re not comfortable with, like beginnings, ends, changes, and
that life is out of our control.
But we know who made time. We trust in the one who uses time
for our good. He “has made everything
beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that
he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11.)
The verse continues. All that God does endures. The time He
made and set for our lifetimes on earth –that’s a gift, too. Our time is part
of something complete, something far beyond our understanding. Lean on Him and
know that that is cause for relief.
That horrible, wonderful, frustrating blessing called time
is His too. So let it be and know that like all gifts, His time is good.
This post is being shared on: #TestimonyTuesday, #RaRaLinkup, Intentionally Pursuing,Titus2sday, Esther Girl, Thought-Provoking Thursday, and Faith-Filled Friday.