By Jorge Monreal
For this article, I was interested to see what the Lord had to say about the subject of time. Not in the sense of finding out what a timeline for the end of the world might be, or understanding all the biblical activities that happened from the beginning of the world until today. Neither was I interested in generating a huge list of several verses in the Bible where time is mentioned. Instead, I was more interested in contrasting our human view of the significance of time with that left to us in the inspired word of God. For a more proper and inclusive study, we probably would require more than just the few pages on which this lesson is written. However, I will attempt to bring to light a few of the more interesting and important points discovered during the generation of this study. You may undoubtedly have a different perspective from which you could possibly offer added knowledge into the points that will be mentioned. Let’s begin, by first reading from
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.” NRSV
In these passages we see a wonderful play of opposites. For each of those opposites, there is a time. As we go through life, we experience many different opposites at different stages in our lives. As time passes, there are many ups and downs relative to our perception of what would constitute a perfect life for each of us. I say relative, because the way each individual reacts to specific situations will vary among each of us depending on such things as personal prior history, attitude, faith in God and prayer, the existence of supportive relationships, and where we place our priorities. From the minute we are born, we are under the protection of the Almighty. Matthew 18:1-6; 19:14 While these scriptures also make reference to the character one must have to enter the kingdom of God, a second truth is revealed in which we are given the comfort that children belong to God. Why? Is it for their innocence and for their ability to accept, absorb and understand new concepts of life? Is it for the curiosity they have and their absence of pre-notions of the way things are supposed to be? Is it for their ability to easily forgive, but still point out those things that do not make sense? We can possibly say that it is for all these and others. Yet as a normal person grows with time, the experiences resulting from the consequences of missteps start to fashion our character. We grow fearful of what might go wrong at any attempt to go beyond our known experiences, given our perceived personal capabilities. This is not a phenomenon just limited to today’s world.
Taking some examples from the Bible, the same type of self-questioning can be found with Abraham, Moses, Mary, and Ananias. In Genesis 17: 16-19, 21; 18: 10-14 we se how both Abraham and Sarah, use their logical human experience to question the possibility of an occurrence that is to happen outside the “normal” time: giving birth at an old age. But the Lord’s response, was that this would happen in due time. Moses was likewise skeptical when told by the Lord that he would deliver his fellow Jews from Egyptian bondage, Exodus 4:10-17. Mary had a similar reaction as presented with the events that were to happen in Luke 1:31-38. Ananias could not believe that Christ chose Paul as an appointed apostle given the Christian persecutions he had previously led. But, it was all for a higher purpose for which none of Jesus’ apostles had planned nor Paul himself expected Acts 9:10-15. Despite the initial “shock”, the faith that followed each of these examples set the “bar” for us to follow. The normal human reaction of intrigue and questioning was followed by faithful obedience to the commandments given by the Lord. In doing so, each was following God’s time not their own. So too was Jesus as he prayed in John 17:1-2 “After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him”
Our view of time is usually linear. One in which we have to accomplish certain things or activities before our brief time ends here on earth. It is sequential, in which we can never undo the past and can only plan for a future that we do not know but we project based on our experiences of the past. For the Great Creator, who in six days created the heavens and the earth, the laws of nature and all earth’s inhabitants, time exists on a different scale. It’s a time scale that brings together all things toward his greater glory. In all of the examples we just read, the actions that happened in God’s due time always resulted in the advancement of the cause of His kingdom. From the establishment of a lineage with which God would make a covenant to save all mankind and the liberation of his chosen people from Egypt, to the birth of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and the ministry of Paul to the Gentiles, God’s time reigned supremely wiser than any concept of time mankind could engender. God’s time has always been with a purpose.
In 100 years most of us reading this article will not be around and our names will pass, society will change, new human laws will arise, and maybe world climate will be different, but the word of God, which has existed for thousands of years, will never pass away. Luke 1:50 “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” Isaiah 40:8 puts it a bit more poetically: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
So in our normal fashion of human frailties we fear that those things over which we have no control will overtake us and we begin to feel burdened and unfortunate when those things happen. Yet we know that there is a time for everything, and all will eventually work toward a greater glory for God. Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything suitable for its time….” And Ecclesiastes 8:5-7 “Whoever obeys a command will meet no harm, and the wise mind will know the time and way. For every matter has its time and way, although the troubles of mortals lie heavy upon them. Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?” Jesus told us the same thing in Matthew 6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Indeed, we do not know what is to be, for only God knows that. We are re-assured, however, that the Lord will take care of us in His time. 1 Samuel 2:4-8 gives us another list of opposites that shows that our perceptions of the best in our time reference, may not necessarily be the best in His time. Those great things that we may have now, we will not always have. And those things that we do not have now, we might have in God’s due course. It is not easy to accept this. God has given us the blessing of free will, freedom of choice, and dominion over many things of the earth. Sometimes, our tendency is for action to control our world rather than for prayer to let God move our personal mountains. And we want to return to our previous “normal” state now! We are comforted by the fact that the Lord has left us with the hope that the “prayers of the faithful availeth much” and that we are but to “ask and we will receive”. Both our prayers and our actions to turn situations around go hand in hand. However, the time belongs to the Lord. How are we to accept God’s time, be it, in our perception, to our favor or not to our favor? James 5:7-11 offers us the suggestion of patience and endurance. Though our physical and sometimes emotional lives could move like roller coasters, if our spiritual lives remain straight and steady we are assured a reward of glory with God.
We can just imagine that our answered prayers arrive in the wake of other answered prayers. God makes all arrangements by moving relationships around, causing actions of those unbeknownst to us, bestowing blessings to our neighbors, answering other’s prayers, so that in the end all things fit together for our prayers to be answered in the perfect time and with the perfect answer that will ultimately give God the greater glory. God arranging not only those things that happen in our present time, but also those things that happened in the past all the while causing the future to happen. So if this indeed takes place, then our sense of time is only as significant to God as a grain of sand is at the bottom of the ocean. Indeed, Peter tells us in 2Peter 3:8 “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”
In the 20th century we saw human cruelty from wars on a level unlike any other times in history. The word of God helped many survive and keep their sanity during those times through resiliency, hope, and faith in our Lord. This century has not started very peacefully either, but the difference now is that there seems to be a concerted movement to diminish Christianity from the hearts and minds of people. Or at the very least, place it on the same level as some important social event one would do on a Friday afternoon after work, or something one would do on the occasion of a festive day rather than an opportunity for heart-felt adoration and worship of God and remembrance of His Son. If such manipulations were to take hold on a large scale, this world would be dark indeed.
There has never been a better time like the present to place faith in the Lord.