Time Above Times

I never understand physics in principle, but as theory or fact, I accept what I read and enjoy seeing it in life. For instance, time is different in space, being much longer. If you are 20 on earth you are about 12 years old in space. Isn’t time universal? Apparently not, how can we understand that weird fact? I can’t. Just marvel and let it roll around your imagination.

God’s thoughts on time are above my thoughts on time. His ways to move outside of time are better than my ways to squander His gift of time.

The issue is…my time is His time. But the wonder is…
His timelessness is my timelessness.

In the realm of the Spirit, in God’s kingdom and heaven, there is no time. Or rather there is a dimension beyond time, therefore timeless.

Now I want to show you the magical world of timelessness.

If you are in your humanity, time is that nightmare of ‘not enough time to do’ or ‘too much time on my hands.’ But walking in the Holy Spirit, there is a kind of transcendence that soars outside of time and accomplishes in minutes, what would take days of human effort – by heaven’s rule come down inside earth’s boundaries.

John talked once about the Lord putting a week’s worth of work inside one day. I have experienced that also.

One condition. You must be IN the Spirit, surrendered to the Spirit and led of the Spirit…on the agenda of the Spirit, in disregard of earth’s time clock. You have to take off the wristwatch and flow with the Spirit. I have planned many a day as ‘my’ day and the Lord would just splash the hours of that day on the ground. HE has planned many a day that took away my day and gave me instead, a brush with eternity. Flexibility is the first rule of the Spirit.

Jesus is longsuffering and that takes time. He is a consummate waster of time, yet Creator of small, exquisite moments.

I drove down our Blue Ridge Mountains to the nearest city yesterday and I gave that time to the Lord, some 45 minutes. “Lord, let this drive somehow be magical.”

We have had an icy cold week yet it didn’t affect our area very much. But what I saw on the drive was a living Christmas card.

Our Suches Lake was covered in white ice with big grey water circles. The usually green-pastured hills over the lake, were all snowy and the little red barn to the side made it a painting.

But driving through our nearly-rain forest hills, my world became a radical, ice age scene. Huge white icicles hung from rock banks. Giant layers of icicles, many feet long and several feet deep, covered a steep waterfall. A light white snow covered the ground and made the bare grey trees stand like thousands of still sentinels, majestic and solemn as winter.

Those minutes were not wasted on mindless driving. They were filled with glad wonder. The prayer had been inspired by Himself. The Lord wanted to show me His ice sculpture!

I read of a man who simply prayed for wonder. And he received it! God can fill the most ordinary times, the repetitious moments with the infusion of HIS beauty, the mystery of His silence, His blessing tossed to the passing car of strangers. The days are His but also the seconds, the moments of ordinary living – which really make up most of life’s occupation.

The Lord WILL waste time on the rebellious, and when it is His agenda it is no waste of me. He WILL give away my time so that I have no time for things I wanted to do, even duties. That is a major surrender to His absolute right to my time. His priority is above and beyond any time constraint, and yet inside His will, everything falls into order…in time.

Surrender of time is the mastery of time.

When Christ takes over a task, it is outside of time, above organization. It can take just minutes or it can take years. He is both economical and extravagant with ‘my’ time.

Oh, and organization! When time is His (and when I will let it be His!) brilliant order descends on the task, so that there is no waste of time or motion. A beauty of movement takes over.
It is Christ…and you come to know Him as the Prince of infinite Peace and order in the universe, from your own little kitchen.

No explanation of God’s sense of time is offered here, such logic is not possible being too worldly. But there is this assurance:

Psalm 138:8 NASB
The Lord will accomplish what concerns me;
your loving-kindness, O Lord, is everlasting;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands.

Me! I am the work of His hands. I leave it constantly to Him and He will finish what He started in my life. He will take over what He gave to me. He will perform what He asks of me. My work is – always, always – just to “believe in the Son Whom God has sent.”

To trust Him to take me to my finish line is a matter of mysterious arrival, right on time. How will I finish? Only God knows, but He has it in His hand. “It is finished” was a declaration for all of mankind and all of eternity. I believe my destiny – and yours – were included in Jesus’ final accomplishment on the cross.

Before it is lived, it is finished, in His Hands…no matter earth’s threatening tick tock, tick tock.

Phil. 1:6 ESV
And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

When I faced the cancer episode, I knelt to the Lord and it rose in me to remember how faithful He has always been to me—without fail! Before I could open my mouth to declare that and thank Him, HE spoke and as usual, His thoughts went way beyond my own:

“I have never failed – to take you where I needed you to be at any given time.”

My life and my times, my faith and my hope, changed in light of that word from His Voice. Jesus Christ, my LORD and Master, is ABLE to rule me, move me and control my times. I sometimes feel subconsciously that I’m just too much for Him! How ludicrous.

So long as I surrender, I can leave my minutes and years to His orchestration, which in the end will be perfect completion…as it is NOW for every day I live without that earth-clock prison.

Let…Jesus take over your times and seasons, because time belongs to God.

Next week…”a time for every purpose.”