Friday, June 27, 2014

Time Travels


Time has always rocked my world.  It has seemed an enemy out of my control, and as I moved toward one birthday after another, I wrestled with the whining wheel.

Clocks ticked.  Chimes rang.  Watches whispered.  

I felt far behind.

Where was I going?  What was I doing?  Where have I been?  What have I lost?    

Time.

What is your first reaction at the hearing of the word?  Are your thoughts positive or negative?  Do they reveal your own fear of time?  Concerns and questions are common to us all and lead to probing and soul-searching.  

I searched and searched again and again.

Then...

Father God grasped my hand and led me on a rocky journey that took me from fearing time to embracing time as a rare jewel.  He heard me whine enough.  He grew weary with my wondering.  I had constantly steeped my mind with anxiety-ridden questions and hopeless thinking.

"What have I really done for you, Lord?  What can I yet do for you?  Is there time...?"

I journeyed on a backwoods trail.  I looked at my past with joy, but I also looked with regret for not applying myself more to my faith.  My journey with Jesus was and is everything to me.

I have lived simply.  It has been hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, church positives to church negatives, ministry successes to ministry failures, peace to war, war to peace, and health to illness.


I am not and never will be a perfectly beautiful monument of faith, for scattered throughout my garden of life are broken pottery shards, tilled soil, vines that need pruning, and herbs that need planting.  Fleshing out faith and grappling with time is messy, gritty, and sharp.

To obey my Father's voice has always been my greatest desire; but, I have sometimes failed to have ears that absorb divine direction.  I am perfectly imperfect.

So are you.  And that's OK.  God loves us still.

After wrestling with time's negatives and their power, new thoughts, divine thoughts, moved me away from confusion to a new soul peace. Father God, after hearing me lament so long, spoke into my soul sweet truths that are altering my attitude and my course.

Our God is a God Who repairs, replaces, renovates, and reshapes. 

I was weighed down by the baggage of lost dreams, silly missteps, and broken promises.  I was a heavy soul.  The worry of past, present, and future pressed the life out of me.  I remembered words I was too shy to share, the pressing of prayers not prayed, the moments I should have said "No" or "Yes" to my children. 

The incessant rewinding's were a score for the enemy.  They provided a lovely field for the planting of his lies:

"You are not enough."  "You have wasted your life."  "It's too late...."

BUT...

Our God is a God Who repairs, replaces, renovates, and reshapes. 

He responded to my wear and tear.  He had new words for me:

"You are enough." Practice self-forgiveness."  "Love yourself, too." "Give yourself the gift of compassion." "Trust me with your past as much as you trust me with your future."  "I love you just like you are."  And, "I love you enough to transform your mind."  (Read Romans chapter 12.)


By the grace only God can give, did I finally get the full picture.  Seasons I had counted as waste were times prepared by my Creator.  Before I was knit together in my mother's womb, he carved out barren places in my life, spaces only God could fill.

What I had perceived as wastes, Father God had meant for His pottery wheel. What I had perceived as missteps, He had ordered with divine power. What I had perceived as evil, He had determined good.  

My life was not and is not void, vain, or useless.  Neither is yours. They were and are fertile soil tilled by the Gardener's hands.  A fresh field for learning about eternity and divine sovereignty.

Because Jesus is real and good and caring, He joys in giving us a fresh window of time.  He does not provide a do-over.  He gives us new vision.  We have a new window of understanding our experiences and time.  The seasons we count dull God declares good. Seasons that seem oil and water mix beautifully in our relationship with the Lord.

For, seasons are crafted, steps are ordered, and time is sown with thousands of seeds.  Parts small and smaller all create a lovely tree, a planting of God's glory.  You are that tree, beloved, when you give all your times, past, present, and future, to your Creator's hands.

You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

from Psalm 1, The Message