Time Continues

Time consumes me. I awake when it is time to. Then comes the time for breakfast; time to get on the road; time to start work and then time to catch up. Wasting time, I will never finish. Suddenly it is time for lunch, but I’m short on time, so I will have to skip it today, I need to make up some time. Time drags, will quitting time ever get here? Too much time spent in traffic. Time to make dinner; just enough time before it is time for my favorite show. Now time to spend with the family before I spend some quiet time with God.

Tomorrow I will do it all again, if I have the time.

Time is everything.

Does anybody really know what time it is? (Does anybody really care?)

Is there really quality time.... only time will tell.

Passing time, killing time, tracking time...all in good time.

Good times, bad times.

Time well spent, wasting time.

A time to live...

The words of King David, “My times are in your hands.”  I wonder if David’s times were as malleable as my list. The words immediately following his declaration read, “deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.”  From the enemies hand into God’s hand! David’s first thought, after finding himself in God’s palm, was that of his enemies.  When we have enemies, foes, opponents, it doesn’t matter what we call them, they consume our thought, and they devour our time. We fret over them, always looking over our shoulder to see how close they may be.

As with any great king, David’s enemies were many. They were ruthless warriors that would cut him down if given the chance. Our own enemies, hopefully, are defined much differently. But the fears they impose, imagined or real, are just as powerful. The dread lasting well into the night, they climb into our bed, making it impossible to rest even for just a moment. After pitiful amounts of sleep I wake up and they are waiting for me. Stealth is not in their description; no, they are forthright in their pursuit. Their missions are many, their goal to destroy, their target...time. Each foe we face has the ability to destroy our time. Time that should be spent creating, achieving, sharing or growing is stolen away because of our fear. The casualties we may experience go beyond any financial concerns, beyond worries about health, even ahead of relational regards. But lost forever is the time destroyed by the enemy.

David’s first time is fear.  But through faith he placed his fear in the hands of God.

“My times are in your hands.”

What other times are there? Too many to count, but we will explore them, learn from them, and then place them in the hands of God.

The verses just prior to David’s declaration;

“But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said thou art my God.”

No greater claim can be made than to declare thou art my God!  So with trust, faith, love and recognition of my God, David placed his times in the hands of God.

Time?

 What times do you have? 

Which ones are you holding on to?

Time

 A slight change of course is in order, an unscheduled break from working on my short story novel.

Last night I was preparing for a Bible study, I read the 31^st Psalm, A Psalm of David. It was in the fifteenth verse that my course of dedication to the new book was altered. The verse begins, “My times are in your hands;” (NIV). These six words spoken by King David to God had a remarkable impact on me. Quite often I will read a verse or passage in the Bible that brings comfort, thought, joy or even fear. I spend time meditating over the words when this happens. But with Psa. 31:15, I immediately knew that it would require more than a few moments of meditation to understand David fully, to enrich my own knowledge and bless my own soul.

“My times are in your hands,” David declared. My mind instantly wanted to understand “times”. The psalmist follows up albeit quietly, refusing to explicate. The beauty of this verse should not be concealed in mystery.  As I read his words over and over, my desire to know more increased.

I am blessed to be able to teach from the Bible twice every week. The studies are structured and beholden to calendars and clocks, and that is okay. But with this verse, “My times are in your hands”; I knew I wanted to spend as much time as needed to understand, to savor and to live the words of King David. So over the next few days or weeks, or however long the Lord decides to tarry in his enlightenment I plan to meditate upon them and share my thoughts here. I hope you will come along with me. I covet your feedback, your thoughts and your critique.

I also covet your prayers.

These words, “My times are in your hands”, have moved me so greatly because of times in my life now. Times are changing. Changes that require much thought and ultimately decisions that must be made. The details are not important now, they will come with time. I can tell you this, I have spent much time in prayer, waiting for an answer, and none would come. I know why now. God lead me to this verse for a reason; to understand Him more fully helps us to understand His answers for our lives. His timing for us is always perfect, I believe He has an answer for me, but understands that I am not ready for this answer. Not until I understand that my times are in His hands.

So the journey begins here, I hope you will come along. 

I did find this hymn today written by William Freeman Lloyd in the 19^th century. The answer may be as simple as the song-

My times are in Thy hand;
My God, I wish them there;
My life, my friends, my soul I leave
Entirely to Thy care.

My times are in Thy hand;
Whatever they may be;
Pleasing or painful, dark or bright,
As best may seem to Thee.

My times are in Thy hand;
Why should I doubt or fear?
My Father’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.

My times are in Thy hand,
Jesus, the crucified!
Those hands my cruel sins had pierced
Are now my guard and guide.

My times are in Thy hand,
I’ll always trust in Thee;
And, after death, at Thy right hand
I shall forever be.

Promotion Time!

I have been reading advise from those much smarter than I on how to promote my books. One easy was was of course to offer them for free! So you can click the links on the right side of this page to take advantage of this great offer starting later tonight.

Update on the next book-I hope to finish this collection of short stories in time to release it for Christmas 2013. I am having a great time writing these stories and creating new characters and reviving some old favorites. This is this is the first time I remember writing more than one story at a time, it has proven to be rather difficult for me. So I am prioritizing, I put all the tittles in a hat a drew names.Don't laugh, it works!

Meaningless

Today is A National Day of Prayer. We certainly need it, although quite honestly, it seems meaningless. I wonder if God even listens anymore. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. Today is the same as those other few days a year, Christmas or Easter, when we give a moment of our attention to seek God. But just long enough to ensure that it will not impede with the rest of our busy life. We pray for health, wealth and prosperity. Many will add a petition for world peace or some other symbolic nonsense. What we don’t do is praise Him. Why? Because by praising God we know we would recognize our hypocrisy, that we will feel our own unending inadequacy, therefore it is easier and safer not to offer praise.

Yet there are abundant reasons for us to pray and not just on a designated day each year. Today we are a divided nation. The ever popular quest for diversification has led to this division. Everyone has an opinion and thanks to social networks and blogs like this one we all have a stage to voice those opinions. Throw diversification into the recipe, along with a pinch of fairness and a dash of tolerance, we end up with unchallenged, errant and immoral thoughts. And there is nobody to stand up and say it is wrong. Meaningless.

Recently we have decided that a fifteen year old girl can swallow a pill to end a life, without consulting anyone, not even her parents. Don’t we see how we devalue life in the name of...what? Fairness? Privacy? Can’t anyone see this is wrong? Did you consider that fifteen year old girl may have been just fourteen yesterday? Somehow in one day she was able to go from being a child to having the knowledge and wisdom to make a decision that will kill? Has anyone told her about life? Meaningless.

The dreadful conditions of politics today go well beyond red or blue, right or left, conservative or liberal. We have no leadership. Not in the Whitehouse or the halls of Congress. Not in the Democrat or Republican parties. These elected leaders spend all their time throwing vocal spears across the aisle, blaming, pointing accusing fingers. Yet never solving, and never leading. Meaningless.

Even in the church there is division and sadly a lack of leadership. Everyone is good at not offending, by allowing what was once called wrong, once called sin to enter the church unchallenged, but it ends there. Where are the men or women who stood at the pulpit declaring the gospel? Leaders who were not afraid to say words like “repent”, “sin” or “Jesus Christ”. Instead they gather on a day of prayer and ask for guidance. Open the Bible, the guidance is there. They ask for health or wealth. They ask for comfort for those who suffered loss at the hands of man or nature. They ask for a brighter future. Everything they ask for is meaningless! Meaningless because by the end of the day they will have forgotten who they prayed for. By tomorrow they will forgotten who they prayed to. Meaningless.

Every day I awaken to more depressing news, yet I can’t seem to turn off the television. I have lived too many years to not know that changing the channel doesn’t change the news. I no longer think about the future as a place of opportunity, now it is just more despair in waiting. Where did we go wrong as a nation, as a people? I long for the past. What was wrong with being honest? What was wrong with baseball and apple pie, knowing your neighbor’s name and going to church? What was wrong with being a family? When did we stop learning from the past? When did we start re-writing history, leaving out anything that may be construed as offensive? When did we stop electing leaders? When did we lose our meaning?

On this National Day of Prayer I gathered with no one. Instead I pulled over on the side of small dirt road east of San Antonio and spoke to God. I told him what I told you, about values that have gone away, about leaders that are no more. I told him that I believed our nation was in a dark downward spiral that may not end. I told him I was afraid. And then I waited and listened. I cried.

He answered, “I knew.”

He knew this day would come. He knew that I would be sitting here on the side of the road...waiting. He knew that not only this nation but the whole world would one day turn their backs on Him. He knew that babies would be thrown away as if rubbish. He knew bombs would destroy the souls of cities.  He knew churches would be burned because people hate. He knew that man would imagine other gods. He knew that in our arrogance we would change His perfect design of family. He knew we would hide His name.

He knew all this from the beginning. He knew with just a wave of his powerful hand he could erase it all and begin again.

But He didn’t.  

Instead He sent his Son to die for us. He did this already knowing. He did this for you and for me.

My prayer tonight on this National Day of Prayer-“I know.”