“God has made everything beautiful for it’s own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT)
I received my online syllabus for New Testament Survey yesterday. I’m relieved to access it early (class begins in ten days) but I’m also intimidated by the workload. One of the assignments is a timeline of the New Testament. Essentially, a timeline of grace. So this looming assignment has me thinking about timelines, about how (unless we are drawing them in arrears) we gain an inch at a time and then wait for the Lord to fill in the details. It’s impressive to realize that He sees them all (yours, mine, anyone and everyone’s) whole and intact and complete while they just unfold for the subject.
I’ve written it in the margins above this scripture, how God has a timeline for beauty, for restoration, for eternity spent together. He’s moving every willing heart toward wholeness, toward complete joy and total rehabilitation in Him if we’ll only cooperate.
I don’t know how you manage large projects, but I have to think about my next class in incremental pieces. It is only manageable when I approach the class one reading, one test, one project at a time. I have to trust the process, if I am obedient to the next task it will eventually unfold into a final grade.
Perhaps our timeline with the Lord is similar: a slow unfolding of our own obedience, meticulously matched by His boundless grace. We feel unequipped, a bit intimidated by the dependent nature of a future still unfolding, but we are not alone in this quest for restoration. No, we walk and work with the One who longs to make it happen for us, in us.
“And this world is fading away, along with everything people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” (1 John 2:17 NLT)
Perhaps if we were to see our timeline as a whole we would also be intimidated, too frozen in fear to be obedient to the next thing. Perhaps it is in God’s good grace that meters out our days and hours in manageable portions, moving us patiently along toward Him.
So the question to ask might be, “What can I do today to please God? What can I give? Who can I love? What seed can I sow or hope can I contribute to?” We consult the Holy Spirit daily, submit to His leading and allowing the timeline of restoration to unfold through our lives.
Lord, thank You for Your grace to us. You have put eternity in our hearts. That has always been Your plan; to spend forever with Your people. Stoke our hope of heaven today and strengthen our resolve as we take small, faithful steps toward You. We can’t see tomorrow, but we can certainly obey You today. May we grow to crave Your Kingdom more than any created thing. We long to be made like You and live with You unhindered one day. Amen.
In graduate school they taught us that there were two ways to measure time, linear and odyssey. Linear time is exactly as it sounds, point A, then point B, the. Point C and so on. For a lot of people (especially men) this is the preferred way to measure time. Odyssey time follows the model of Homer’s Odyssey. In this work, Odysseus (or Ulysses in Roman accounts) takes a ten year circuitous route home after the 10 year Trojan war. After many trials, attacks (by Poseidon), even incarceration, Odysseus finds his way back to his home in Ithaca, Greece.
I have long believed that whatever timeline God has for us is definitely created in Odyssey time, with twists and unexpected turns. For me the best way to challenge this unpredictable time line is to utter with conviction the phrase “I’ll never do that!” That’s the surest way I know to affect my future… 😝
Such very good thoughts, Pastor Mike. I like to take the long way home, too.