My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! Psalm 31:15 (ESV)
Rhythm and Time – Timing is Everything Series – Part 3
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
The ancients viewed time more as a rhythm rather than a length. Like the seasons; there’s a rhythm to it. Planting, waiting, harvesting, toiling the soil and over again. There’s a rhythm to life and living. A timing to it all. A grace.
I hear people say things like, “God’s timing is perfect!” when it results in a good outcome for them – finding a great parking spot at the supermarket, getting a promotion at work, buying something on sale, meeting your life partner. But whenever I hear that, I can’t help but think about people experiencing something else…
The mum of three small children given 6 months to live.
A dad losing his job right before Christmas.
A teenager losing control of their car on the freeway.
A young adult battling depression.
A baby born with a serious heart condition.
Someone trapped in the prison of sexual abuse.
A preacher’s wife keeping her husband's secrets.
Refugees with no home or country or options.
A toddler passed by for adoption.
Parents who just lost a child to suicide.
The failing college student.
A woman hiding her sexuality.
Does God exist in our time? Is he a slave to clock and calendar like us human folk? Does he answer our prayers, or not, when he deems the time is right?
These ideas confine the Infinite, the Divine God to human reason and logic. A construct he will never fit into. But if God lives beyond, around and through time; if God’s timing is rhythm rather than length, then his essence, presence, love and light can beat through it all, permeating our human experience with supernatural awe and grace.
CS Lewis wrote, “God is not a static thing — not even a person — but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.”
Does God make things happen for some and not others? Is there an ‘appointed’ time for one to be healed, for abuse to stop, for wars to end? Or perhaps, we dance our lives in time to his beat, not in spite of our circumstances, but with them. We move with love, we sway with hope, we step forward in peace, we step back in wisdom… God, our timekeeper, the eternal beat of all existence, keeps our hearts close through it all.
God’s timing, his beat, his rhythm, transcends circumstance – like his peace that is beyond our comprehensive abilities.
It’s Moses walking across a parted sea.
It’s Job saying “Yet will I trust you.”
It’s David dancing wildly in the streets.
It’s the accused woman being thrown at Christ’s feet.
It’s Jesus walking the road to Golgotha.
The dance of life to a divine rhythm.
How do you view God's timing? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Go to Part 4 – A Time For Everything »
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