As a nurse, I take care of many kinds of people. Wealthy and poor. Educated and ignorant. Clean and dirty. Sometimes, I take care of prisoners. I once asked my patient who had just arrived from the jail what time her symptoms started. Her answer has stayed with me all this time later. She said she didn’t know the exact time because “they don’t give us clocks.” Wow! Can you imagine?
As a people we are obsessed with time. We swipe our badges and punch clocks. We rush our kids all over the place. We check our watches. We check the time on our phones. We hurry to clean the house, do the laundry, and make supper. We collapse into bed and as we set the time on the alarm clock, we mutter “there wasn’t enough time in the day.” What a rat race!I wonder if God cares about time? I think He does.For one, He gave us the Sabbath. A day to rest. A 24 hour block of time every week when He calls us back to Him. To remember the stories. The Creation story. The story of the fall. The redemption story.Second, He provided wisdom to the wisest man ever with this great passage:“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plan and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)That pretty much covers it, doesn’t it? No matter where we find ourselves in this race we can be assured. We are going to have good times and bad. Easy times and difficult.My brother still gets a kick out of remembering a little story that happened at Springtown Church when Jake and Ben were little. It was during the time between church and waiting for potluck to get started. They began to roughhouse a little inside the church and I firmly and with much wisdom told them to “take it outside, we don’t act like that in the sanctuary.” Danny busted out laughing. Apparently he thought my mom-of-three-boys wisdom of “not the time or place to wrestle-you don’t have to stop-just take it outside” was flawed. (He may have had a point!)But still, there is a time, place, and season for everything as Solomon wrote. Which brings me to the third reason I believe God cares about time.There will be a time for this world to end. For time as we know it to come to a stop.The Bible is clear no man knows the exact time, but I can feel it in the air, can’t you? Nations are rising against nations. Our country is a mess. Social issues go against God’s plan. My goodness! We have a Christian man running for president right now who is literally calling people back to God! His slogan, “Heal-Inspire-Revive,” is literally claiming God’s promise to heal our land if we turn and seek Him. (2 Chronicles 7:14)Now, I have no idea where Ben Carson’s campaign will take him and I know this is not the place for political discussions. But I wonder if this is a part of the time of the end!? And I am reminded of another “slogan” of time.It’s found in Esther 4:14, with Mordecai talking to Esther. “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”Such a time as this. Is Ben Carson rising to the front for “such a time as this?” I don’t yet know!But I do know this. One, I want to honor my Father in heaven by remembering His time, His Sabbath. Two, I want to be faithful in every time, place, and season I find myself in. And three, like Esther, I want to be willing to be used by Him “for such a time as this.”
