Reorienting Time

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 3:18-21)

The Lord is above and beyond, before and after time. We are captives of time, marking minutes and hours, sensing seconds passing ever so slowly. Yet, God is with us, understanding, wondering as His closest disciples could not stay awake for a few hours to watch and pray and a critical time in all history. He is master of perfect timing, like King Xerxes walking in just as Haman lunges toward Esther as to assault her. (Esther 7:5-8) He sends Nathan to tell David an account of a rich man who takes a poor man’s only pet lamb to slaughter, enraging David’s emotions, until Nathan pronounces, “You are the man.” (2 Sam. 12:7) God’s timing for us is perfect. As Yeshua told his brothers, “…for you any time will do.” (John 7:6) Yeshua, lived in time as a human, but He was in synch with God’s timing.

How often do we ask for God to move according to our timing. If we were in synch with God, would we rest because by faith we would know we already have what we need, what we’ve asked for, what God’s unfolding purposes will produce by grace. How often are we haunted by our past? Replaying painful or shameful memories with regret? This is not of God, who has made us a new creation, thrown our transgressions into the sea of forgetfulness and removed our sins as far away as the east is from the west. (Ps. 103:12) Is it possible to rise above time for a moment, just long enough to hear the Spirit’s voice and meditate on God’s word to us, “I have loved you with an everlasting love…” (Jer. 31:3) 

In this life we have some discretion to wait on God, to quiet our frenetic mind and fall into the everlasting arms, letting the Lord restore our soul. It may be that He is waiting upon us. This is part of the victory Yeshua accomplished on the cross as we are in Him and He in us.