March 28, 2017
Spring is slowly creeping forward and pushing back the cold. Easter is around the corner. The farmers are working getting their equipment ready for the planting season. The flu bug seems to be near the end of its strength. The long sigh of winter has finally expired.
The seasons come and the seasons go. The clock of time incessantly ticks. Sometimes we are lost in its rush and seem oblivious to its passing. Other times, hours pass like days and days like weeks when we are stricken with some affliction.
But the only time we can really live in is the present. The past is gone, and the future has not yet arrived. We have the moment by moment of the now and this is all we can deal with.
Life is like a giant jig-saw puzzle. It is very difficult to put one of these puzzles together unless you have the box top to know what the picture looks like. In our case, God holds the box top of our lives in His hand. He gives us one piece each day to see and live and fit into the landscape of our existence. He has given us the Bible to give us the wisdom to know how to live out each day. Sometimes life makes good sense and we seem to “get it.” Other times, we are totally confounded trying to understand what God is trying to do. Nevertheless, life is not best lived with us having to understand everything, but rather trusting the One who does whether or not we “get it” or not.
“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” (James 5:7-8)
When the Lord does come, all will come to light and we will be able to look at the whole box top of our lives. We will then marvel at the goodness and grace of God as to how He providentially moved us towards Him and His purpose. We will no longer have to sing “Guide us, O Thou Great Jehovah, through this barren wilderness”, for we will see the fullness of His leading. Oh, what a day that will be when we no longer are on the journey, but have at the ultimate destination of God Himself.
When I was in the throes of Marine Corps boot camp and we thought the drill instructors were going to exercise us into an early grave, they gave us a song we would sing as we were running our guts out. “Ain’t no use in looking down, ain’t no discharge on the ground, lefty right left.” As Christians, we need to look up beyond our timebound circumstances and look up trusting the goodness of the Lord for each moment of each day. For each one of us, graduation day is coming. Time will be no more. We will live with Him in the eternal now and bask in the glory of who He is. And we will see and know without the veil of Adamic weakness, but revel in the presence of the perfect man – Jesus Christ the Lord, the Son of God and God the Son.
Until then, we live by faith,
Pastor John Schofield
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently see him.” (Hebrews 11:6).
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