I love passages about God's timing. Remember Romans 5? "At just the right time . . ."
Understanding God's timing in hindsight is easy. Predicting or mandating it in the future is near futility. Making sense of his movement as it is happening -- that's a detective story. How do you know or sense when "the time has fully come." Obviously the three magi who followed the star had the ability. You could argue Herod, Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, and many of the other birth story characters felt the tremors of plates shifting beneath their feet.
Even from a historical perspective, if you were looking in the right places, you could have seen that the time was ripe for God to begin a new chapter . . .
- The Pax Romana initiated by Augustus Caesar left the world at relative peace, allowing people to think more about spiritual things.
- The Grecco-Roman expansion untied the world under a common economy, language, and road system.
- After over 500 years of silence from God, the Jewish faith had been hijacked religious hucksters who stressed knowledge and rule following. There was a tremendous spiritual hunger.
If I were a lot smarter, I present further evidence.
But here's the point: Sometimes you can sense that "the time has fully come" for you. There are weak signals and coincidences everywhere. You don't know with any precision what God is doing, nevertheless you are being prepared, along with the world around you, for something significant.
Why put off thinking about the fullness of time until some future moment when God has already moved or you are feeling particularly nostalgic? Why not take out the maginifying glass right now and consider some of the clues in front of you?
What are you seeing that would suggest that your life is pregnant with something new and alive?
In a later post, I'll talk about some of the stirrings and rumblings that I'm feeling that suggest there is something alive in me that wants to get out.
2 comments:
Ted, your first two entries made me think of the time I took my mom to Maine. I’d never been there before and mom was navigating us to Pemiquid Point. “First we’ll find this road, then we’ll go east on that road, at this city we’ll start going south…” Whoa!!! One road at a time! When we are in familiar territory, we can handle a multitude of directions to where we are going. I, like you are now, was in new territory, going somewhere new and exciting. God knows when we can only comprehend directions one road at a time. He has been preparing your heart, Ted. I believe very soon he’ll drop you a postcard showing your next destination. He may not lay out the entire map, but He’ll show you the beautiful landscape for your next season.
At the start, He was there, He was there
In the end, He’ll be there, He’ll be there
After all our hands have wrought, He forgives
Oh the glory of it all, is He came here
For the rescue of us all, that we may live
For the glory of it all, for the glory of it all
All is lost, find Him there, find Him there
After night, dawn is there, dawn is there
After all, falls apart, He repairs, He repairs
After night, comes a light, dawn is here, dawn is here
It’s a new day, it’s a new day
Everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same
Oh the glory of it all, is You came here
For the rescue of us all, that we may live
For the glory of it all, oh You are here
With redemption for us all, that we may live
For the glory of it all, oh the glory of it all
The glory of it all, oh the glory of it all - DC*B Passion '07
Ted, you (and hopefully us) will never be the same after this. I have great anticipation about not only what is going to come your way, but what God will reveal to me, and my walk through it personally. God is not about just blessing one man, right? :) I believe I am going to see his glory in all of this, and that makes me very excited!
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