Does anybody really know what time it is? (updated)

I stole this from a Chicago (the band) song but am so going to use it out of context this morning.

Most of us run our lives on a schedule.  School starts at this time, work starts at that time.  We plan to get up early enough to get things ready for our day.  When that schedule gets messed up, when things don't go right, when someone hogs all the hot water in the morning, you know your day isn't going to start well.  We get frustrated when things don't necessarily go our way.  We're by nature, I think, impatient, which causes us our own grief some days.

We have things to do, places to go, and because traffic was a mess on I-15, or those $#^& miles of orange barrels with no workmen in sight have our street closed down to one lane; we're late.  Not just late, but angry at the world late.  You know that kind of day.   That $#^* that just cut us off doesn't help much and if only we could get to him (or her) we'd tell 'em a thing or two. Sometimes, we let them know they're #1 in our book. We're on a schedue and when things disrupt that schedule, well, it irks us.

Things don't always go as planned either.  That's frustrating as well.  We make outside plans and it rains.  Things break, usually at the most inopportune time.  We make decisions, then suddenly everything starts to go all wrong.  It's all part of the everyday.  It's just life, but it interrupts our schedule.  It interferes with our time.  It interferes with what we want, when we want it (which is usually right now!).

Time is kind of one of those terms where context is key.  If I ask you what the time is, you'd have an answer.  We use time to make plans.  We use it as a point of reference in history.  We use it in this way as well:  It's time to do this or that.  But how do we know that it's time?

I heard a song the other day on the radio and I wish I could find it online.  It's got to be pretty obscure because I couldn't even find the lyrics on google.  One lyric from the song stated it bluntly:  "wait on Me, wait on Me; I hold time in My hand".  We have our timetable; God has His.  Jesus didn't come on man's timetable; he won't in October, either.  God knows when.  He gave us clues, but no day.  God's time and ours don't always mesh, either.  We want things now; God gives us to them when He chooses.  I can testify to that!

We time things by our limited understanding of the universe.  We know our days are numbered; there are only so many hours in a day. We gotta get things done!  That's us operating in our time.   God has eternity.  That's a concept I can't wrap my little brain around.  The other thing is that God already knows the outcome to whatever it is we have planned, regardless of our timing for things.

God uses our time to His advantage, too.  Sometimes I don't think we look at the difficulties of life that way, though.  God uses delay to chastise us, chasten us, to make us stronger, to draw us to Him, to suit His purpose (at least in my case, He's done those things and the Bible is full of stories of how God used His time, not man's)!

Remember that the next time things don't go your way, things aren't happening as quickly as you'd like them to.  It's absolutely my biggest fault these days.  I want to rush something that just can't be rushed.  In God's time... not mine.  A lesson learned via personal experience and a very nice e-mail from a friend who is also learning that lesson...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

And part two....

At least I can laugh about it!

not that guy today!