Opus 2026-035: Time Flies

At least when you’re having fun.  I am reminded of something we used to always repeat in the army, “hurry up and wait”.  That expression is so apropos to so much of our life.  You make an appointment three months in advance to see a certain specialist.  You are told to arrive 30 minutes early and when you get into the waiting room, you sit there for an hour past your appointment time.  It would seem to me that if they’re going to see everybody before they go home that they would schedule things with a little more consideration for the people who are paying their salary.

I guess we’re never happy.  What got me off on this was thinking about the second coming of Christ because of something I had written in another post.  It’s amazing how everybody wants to fit God into their pocket calendar.  They want to schedule Him in when they have a moment.  People tend to be very expectant of the end times and the rapture when they are going through hard times.  We’ve all heard how there are no atheist in a foxhole.  Maybe not but they’re certainly not people that God recognizes as belonging to Him.

God’s view of time and our time are totally different.  We only have a few years to accomplish whatever it is that we think we’re going to do.  God has eternity.  I have a sneaking suspicion that while we feel that time speeds up and slows down based on our mood and activities, God can actually speed things up, slow things down and even stop them.  We need to remember that when we look at things like prophecy or even history.

So often we hear about the angry God of the Old Testament and the loving God of the New Testament.  What rubbish.  Jesus only had to put up with His disciples for three years; He could afford to be patient.  His patience was not exhausted.  Maybe it was.  They were a pretty dense crowd at some points.  But God in dealing with Israel was looking at centuries and possibly millennium.  Did you ever ask yourself why did God leave Israel in slavery for 400 years at the beck and call of Pharaoh?  Couldn’t He have sent Moses a bit earlier?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It could be that He had to wait 400 years to get enough Israelites to have armies to conquer the promised land.  I don’t think Joseph and his brothers could’ve gotten it done.  Actually, I guess they could if God wanted to work miracles, but that doesn’t seem to be the way He works.

Then you wonder why did they have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years?  It could’ve been punishment.  The one thing I’ve often heard is how the older generation had to die off.  I think that’s in the scripture.  In addition to that, it’s very possible that during that 40 years, He was training an army to actually use swords and spears and to know how to work together.

Then you look at the wrath of God descending upon Israel.  You wonder how come He was so angry.  What happened to the God of love?  The problem is that we do not have a biblical concept of love.  We have a Hollywood concept of love.  If it can’t appear in a Hallmark movie or be written on a Hallmark card, we don’t understand what it’s all about.  That’s one reason why our children are so spoiled and often useless.  God endured generations of Israelites spitting in his face and ignoring him.  He sent prophet after prophet, calling for repentance.  Crickets.  Eventually, even God had enough and His wrath was released.  It was simply Him, expressing His love and trying to save His remnant by eliminating those who polluted the gene pool.

When you question God’s timing, you need to start thinking in terms of centuries, not minutes.  He’s not impressed with your calendar.

homo unius libri