TIME

Time, what is it really—and what is for? We know, depending on our age, that it either flies quickly or, it drags on agonizingly slow.

Often, when we are in trouble or facing tests time becomes of paramount importance to us. Basically, we become “clock-watcher’s”. Each second counts. We pray for release and count the days, weeks and sometimes, even years, expecting change to come in time. We expect God to respond according to time—our time. If He doesn’t move instantly, most of us can and will wait longer without becoming disillusioned immediately, but some turn their backs on God as soon as the going gets tough. Jesus explained how different people react in the parable of the sower. Jesus spoke of those who give up at the first sight of  trouble as those who fall upon “stony places” and don’t have any depth [Matthew 13:20]; so when trials come, they are consumed by them. He knows us—each of us, and what we can handle. Most of us, don't do the Job test too well; we'll give God the cold shoulder as soon as we don’t get our own way in the small things.

What happens when “stones” come? What happens to your faith when the well is dry—and what happens when God says, “no”? Too often, we hear preachers tell us what we want to hear and what feels good. We like to hear, “He may not come when you want Him, but He’s right on time!” We like to hear that, “trouble won’t last always”, or “there’s a blessing with your name on it” and “God will give you what you asked for, just wait for His timing…”. Hmmm….sounds good, but what happens when God says, “NO!”??? What happens when years go by and things go from bad to worse? Will you still trust Him? Here is what the prophet Habakkuk had to say, “ Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation!  The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!” [Habakkuk 3:18,19 Amplified Bible]. Habakkuk wasn’t talking about rejoicing after things got better, but he was rejoicing in the Lord Who enabled him to be victorious over his “high places”. God didn’t remove the trouble and suffering, but He made him triumph in spite of them. This is the place God wants to take His children.

We have no interest in victory in our trials—we simply demand to be released from our trials, and will settle for nothing less from our Sovereign God. We have become such Gideon-like people (and I mean, before the Lord called him out to be a "mighty man of valor"). We are hiding out afraid of any discomfort, and when tests come, our automatic reaction is to seek a way out, rather than to find purpose, learn and be victorious in the midst. There is so much to be learned from trials. So much growth and maturation happens in the test—that’s the training ground for the soldier of God.

Today’s Christian is not much to contend with—easy prey for the adversary. Create a little friction, and we’re ready to give up and run for the hills. I think our understanding (or lack of it) of time and eternity has a lot to do with our reaction to trials. We forget the big picture. We even forget God’s place in the big picture—we put Him into our time frame, forgetting that God does not exist in time. He is eternal and He behaves eternally. When we are thinking we have been going through a test for ten years, God isn’t thinking “my child has been in that too long”, His thought is, “is my child ready to come out of this—has he/she learned everything and fulfilled the purpose that I intended when the adversary came to test/consider them?” Time is not a consideration for God in terms of our tests and trials. For God, time is only given to us for the purpose of preparation for eternity—real living. He wants us to think like eternal beings, not like this (world) is it, or this is life. This is the preparation for our real life which begins when we step into eternity. We can’t be so focused on today and its troubles or its merry-making that we forget the mission.

We have this gift called “time” and it has a distinct purpose—it has a distinct beginning and an end. There isn’t much of it, so we must use it wisely. The purpose of it is to prepare for eternity—not only ourselves, but we are co-missioned. Two things: together (co+mission) we are on this mission to win the world to Christ. We are commissioned for reconciliation—leading men to Christ, so that they, too can be reconciled, that is reconnected and restored to right relationship with God, which was broken at the beginning of time. Sin changed the purpose of time, and seemingly changed the nature of time from infinite to having a distinct beginning and end; we must use it wisely.

Don’t make the mistake of putting Eternal God into a temporal time box. He does not fit and will not be contained therein. Time is for us, not for God. Allow your tests to do what God intends for them to do in you—satan means them for evil and to destroy (don't let him win!), but God—is ALWAYS working (within the framework of those tests) for the good of them that love Him and are the called according to His purpose. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

or height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:28-39, KJV]