A Week For Devotion

Monday.  Another monday.  Every week comes and goes and brings another week when it is finished. The seemingly-endless cycle of days upon days and weeks upon weeks is back again.  And with each passing measurement of time we are presented with a decision, an opportunity for either rebellion or disobedience.  This monday, this week, let us make the most of the opportunity we've been given, let us take this week for devotion.

Psalm 90:12–Teach Us to Number Our Days

Psalm 90:12–"So teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom."

Time flies, and as I get older time seems to speed by like a jet-propelled plane racing through the days of my life.  Realizing this can be, at the very least, a terrifying thought.  But before I fall into the deepest of despairs reckoned by the prospect of aging, I am reminded that time is valuable and I shouldn't waste it worrying about how precious it is.  Instead, I consider these verses and those like it that remind me that there is another perspective at play here, a different way to handle the swift passage of time: cherish it.

Remembering that our days are limited is the first step in treating each day as a distinct gift that should not be wasted away.  Let us commit to take this verse seriously throughout 2014 as we strive to live lives of discipline and wisdom.

Thoughts on Life

It is an all-too easy thing to think of life in ever-expansive terms, making one's own being seem larger and loftier while also making it less rooted in reality.  In this celebrity culture one's life tends to be distilled into bullet points of achievement and ownership as the fullness of a person is fragmented into pieces to be parsed into categories of merit, one pile of value and another of uselessness.  But as this process begins to take a human and turn them into mere components of an individualized narrative, the product of this fermentation is a counterfeit inebriation of how we perceive life.

What I mean to say, in a roundabout way, is that it is all the more vital today that we would take a moment to step out of ourselves to view the big picture.  I have countless encounters with people who are so engrossed and enameled with particular elements of their lives that they are always stuck wearing tunnel-vision goggles, undoubtedly running into the same walls simply because they've not taken the time to recognize the forest though they be surrounded by trees.

And having so overvalued the personal experience that we've lost sight of the real, the Truth, and the valuable; that is, if we ever had the vision to see these things before of course.  The point of this blog is to exhort us to live a life that takes time to breath in the world around us and that we would slow down and smell the proverbial roses.  For today, then, let us take a moment or two to take in the world around us and to praise God for it all!

Psalm 90:4–God's Sense of Time

Psalm 90:4: "For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night."

This concept reaches the very limits of language and thought, but it forces an inescapable conclusion: God's concept of time is not like ours.  Humans are temporal beings.  We are constrained to the constructs of time and space.  It takes a great strain of thought, therefore, to consider any concept of eternity.  We are, as stated, intimately tied to now, to the present moment.

Because He is eternal, God lives every moment that has occurred and every moment that will occur as the present.  Acknowledging this reality is one of the sweet truths of Christianity for if we recognize that God sees everything past and future presently, then we can easily see how we rest our faith upon His sureness.  Let us then always remember this when we pray to God for our future, because to God, the future already is.

Figuring in the Passage of Time

Life is full of landmark moments.  The first dates, the first kisses, graduations, weddings, houses, kids, all landmark moments in a person's life.  And from one moment to the next, we are forced by these passages into a sort of introspective contemplation through which we assess and remember the assorted moments as they've passed as well as the hope for the ones yet to come.  These times can be full of emotion and nostalgia, if not even overwhelming.

It is at these times that we get a glimpse of eternity, maybe a peek into the perspective of God, who sees all events simultaneously, His vision both perfectly reminiscent about every event that has ever or wille ver occur for they are all the present to God presently.  It is quite beautiful to think that God has given us this lovely glimpse into who He is.  Thank You, Lord, for the joy of seeing as You see if even in the slightest sense!

Same Old Story Never Outdated

When I came of age I desired to shed myself of all that was old in an effort to discover for myself what this life was all about.  I was excited to do life for myself.  The process endeavored to rid me of the traditions that had moored me to the docks and, I assumed, limited my scope to see reality 'as it was.'  This was a conscience undertaking in which I tore down the values and morals that I was raised with while I was feeding on the assumption that these things were but fences that kept me confined and shackles that prevented me from life.

Fully embracing the relativism around me I begin to construct a life and developing a lifestyle that echoed my newly-formed worldview.  Hedonism became my status quo.  I felt the need to build my own new traditions steeped in pleasure and full of relative concepts of truth, namely, if it was exciting and usable then it was true.

My major assumption, and my downfall, was that tradition and truth that was not new or relative was, in some way, more valid.  My assumptions proved false under testing.  Truth begin to rise to the surface in my heart in the form that I had already discredited and thought illegitimate: Christianity, more directly, Christ Jesus Himself.

I had discounted the value of Christianity because of its oldness.  I thought that because traditional religion and Christianity was old that then it was also tired, outdated, and irrelevant.  I had attributed the value of Christ to the ancient age of the beliefs and, in effect, found it wanting for that.  My bias, however, betrayed the basic reality of truth, particularly that truth is by nature true and true agelessly.

God, in a sense, hit me in the heart and I was devastated at my own desolation.  My response was to pray and read.  I prayed and read Scripture like a famished dog lapping up water.  I could not get it enough.  At some point, not a point per se but a moment in the process, I realized the profoundness that had so eluded me before.  God is and He has revealed Himself to mankind by His Word and through His Son Jesus Christ.  

When I finally discovered it for myself, what I thought was old and cold theology was vibrant and energizing.  The reality was that the truth of God did apply.  I realized that it stood the test of time not because it was passed on to successive generations (though surely it was), but the truth of Christ stood the test of time because it is true.  I had never understood that until I faced Christ myself.  At the final analysis, Jesus never goes out of style because truth is always true and Jesus is truth.

Time's Role in Growth based on My Love of Cooking

I like to cook.  Actually, I love to cook.  There is something so rewarding about making a good meal and sharing the table with family and friends.  It is one of the truly great joys of life.  I have cooked many meals, but my favorite thing to cook without a doubt is meat.  And whether its bacon, a burger, a steak, ribs, chops, or meatloaf, the key to great meat is still the same: time.

The best meat takes time.  Whenever you try to rush cooking the meat, you run the risk of overcooking, burning, or rendering it too tough and dry to be fit for use as anything other than a doorstop, let alone for human consumption.  Strangely enough, sanctification and godly character require the same sort of patience, the same kind of focused endurance.

Time is often the primary ingredient in sanctification.  True, focused prayer and Bible study are also necessary components but there is a definite reason that overseers need to be elders.  It is the passage of time, paired with the consistent pursuit of Christ that produces sanctification and growth.  This is what James is talking about when he says that we should let steadfastness have its full effect, meaning that only once perseverance has been met with the passage of time will it serve its intended sanctifying purposes (James 1:2-4).

This is one of those truths of life, that the passage of time is one of the primary ingredients in all good growth, be it the flowers of the garden, the braising of a short rib, or the maturation of spiritual character.  Let us then strive to remain steadfast over time so as to let perseverance fulfill its work so that we may be drawn closer and closer to God through Christ!

Consider again the words of James: "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming.  See how the farmer waits fro the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains.  You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near." (James 5:7-8).

All But a Mist

James writes: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14b).

Or consider the psalmist who writes: "For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace." (Psa 102:3).

The preciousness of human life is but a vapor that appears to be blown away by the wind.  Solomon calls it but a vanity of vanities, a truly fleeting thing.  But this has never stopped humans from delusions of grandeur, from exalting our paltry lives to the heights of the created order.  We constantly and continually attempt to own, to conquer, to claim, and to name all that is within our reach.  But, in the end, mist cannot keep the time, vapor cannot hold anything.

Instead, all that we have has been given us by God.  We are but stewards to the grace that has been given.  This includes above all else the resource of time; we cannot own it our keep it but we are held accountable to how we use it.  We should never forget this reality, for how we use the precious little time that we've been blessed with is of the utmost importance.  Let us, then, never forget this truth but let it be the bedrock for our devotion and discipline to the Lord!

Sweet, Precious Time

Time is the most precious commodity.  It cannot be saved.  It cannot be purchased or bartered.  It cannot be kept.  Above all else, though, time is not an inherent right; it is a gift, the most precious of gifts.  Time is immaterial, yet real.  It is a passage of moments, a sequence of successive events.  Time is, at its heart, how we measure and quantify this phenomena.  Yet to think of time as merely a ruler for gauge the length of sequential moments would be to betray the fundamental nature of time: namely, that we only have so much of it.

Every human being is allotted the same 24-hour day.  We take this profound truth without much thought and little philosophizing.  In reality, we only ever consider the passage of time when its scarcity conflicts with our own convenience, or when our schedules seem "overstuffed" like pouring water into a full glass as it continues to overflow.

There is a rarity to time.  Because there will never be more now that there is.  No one can ever have two minutes in a single second or a year saved up for later use.  This is a simple and deep truth.  However, despite this reality, many people neglect the ramifications: if a person has only so much priceless time at his/her disposal, how he/she chooses to use that time is of the utmost importance.

This is what Paul means: "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." (Eph 5:15-16).

Pair that with the psalmist: "O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!" (Psa 39:4).  And again, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." (Psa 90:12).

In the end, there is no greater resource to any person than the resource of time.  It is necessary for all growth, for all healing, for all learning, for all relationships.  It could be said, with certainty, that without time--one of the great gracious gifts of God--no life could be, for it is in the confines of time that life occurs and is experienced.  Let us then never forget this startling truth, but let it burn within us an urgency to our devotion to the will of God!