Galatians 4:1-5 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. NKJV
The Real Time Lord
I started this year of writing behind schedule. Many items in my ‘To Do List’ had begun the year in alarmed and flashing red. It’s September now and I have spent the last nine months playing catch up. I have failed to catch up. Oh most miserable of men!
You see my friends, there are just not enough hours in the day. There is just not enough time to accomplish all that I want to. Motorcycling back to my study this morning from a visit to my Chiropractor, I found myself once again musing on the demands of the rest of the day and my lack of time to service those same demands. I wonder if lack of time has left important things undone in your life and the lack of time you know you will encounter tomorrow, is already tying a knot in your tired little bowels tonight? If so then I pray the next few paragraphs of musing will provide you with some timeless comfort to help you rest tonight in the arms of the Lord of time.
The longest running science fiction series in the world was created and first aired by the BBC in 1963. 'Dr Who,' is the story of an eccentric alien from the now destroyed planet of Gallifrey, an ‘on the run’ Time Lord, wandering through the cosmos in a broken time-machine shaped like a 1950’s Police telephone box! Suffice to say, that as a child of the 1960’s, I too joined the many millions who hid behind the sofa during the scary bits of the T.V. series. A Time Lord in popular folk lore, has been understood then ‘as a being who has time as his slave.’ Imagine that. Imagine time being your slave. Of course this is not the case. On the whole, we are slaves to the manipulation of time. Let me give you a few examples.The are in fact five kinds of time that I exist in, and I would describe them as follows:-
Scheduled Time. This is time I am slave to. Either my boss, or my diary, my wife or my children, my dentist or my doctor, my congregation and all the demands of my days have required of me to be at a certain place, dressed in a certain way, to complete certain tasks at a certain time. I am a slave to this kind of time. Not obeying the demands of this time will have serious consequences on the enjoyment of other times.
Intended Time. This is the time I intended to arrive at an event; the time I intended to give to preparing that sermon; the time intended to dedicate to that person. Intended time for me is mostly unrealized time; it is fictitious time.
Apologetic Time. This is the time I take saying sorry for not delivering on my intended time. Apologetic time is for me real time, because it is the time I am there at the event, in the groove, with the person actually doing what I intended to do, even if it’s not at the time I intended to do it! It's better than nothing.
Fighting Time. This is the time I spend waiting for other people and other entities to win the battles and make the ways for me to place my feet. This is the time that I spend either butting my head against doors which God has closed or kicking doors that the devil is trying to keep closed. This is fighting time and to someone like me who is, shall we say, not the most patient of individuals, it is bowel-knotting time, it is wasted time, it is frustrated time!
Fullness Time. God does in fact deal only in this kind of time. It is a mystery for me, that all of God’s creation function and fluster in the other four kinds on time, yet God, as the only real ‘Time Lord,’ can breathe easily in our four experiences of time, because He is the Lord of time. This is a mystery. Mysteries can only be observed and experienced, they can never be explained.
We observe from the Scriptures then, that God is the creator of time. Time is under His personal direction and control. God is the transcendent Lord of Time! He is over it, in it, but not subject to what we might deem to be, both the capricious and unrelenting nature of time. God is the bookend at both ends of time! God is the first and the last of time. God is the ether of time in that, He always IS and in is present I AM in which we live and move and have our being! These facts alone, reveal time to be God’s created sphere in which His plans and purposes are actualized and realized. All time then is HIS time.
We slaves of time and its unrelenting onward march, whether it is with us or without us, we subjects of time, live our lives out in the daily and nightly experience of scheduled, intended, apologetic or fighting time. All of this we shall daily affirm in our late evenings, to be frustrating time, foggy time and even life sucking time. As we fall ever rapidly from the top of our three score years and ten, ground zero and its six feet of wet earth, await open-mouthed for all our forthcoming impacts. Yes, to live in these four experiences of time alone, is indeed and quite simply for human kind, an ever-tiring exercise in seeming futility. Somehow, we must begin to see time as His time, we must begin to see time from God’s perspective. We need to see time as the fullness time of the Great Time Lord for at the moment, for too many of us, time has us as its slave.
You see, the eternal framework of time, was allowed by God to hernia like, burst into and become the boundary for space, yes, for time to become even the very habitation of space and all the material reference points of which we are part of in space. The pollution of sin however, within this space-time framework, has fogged and dogged, clogged and bogged our comprehension of time, our apprehension of time, our appreciation of time, leaving us like lost children, and like, well dementia’d men, who have forgotten the whereabouts of their car in the vast parking lot of life, we are troubled and we are confused. When approached and then asked to describe the transport of our desire, we fail miserably to adequately describe the vehicle we are looking for and even if we at some point believe we have discovered it, then the frantic search for keys in every hung-out trouser pocket will only leave us in further heart despair. For we are truly lost in time and greatly troubled by its slavish and troubling presence. So for our sanities sake, somehow we must begin to see time as His time, we must begin to see time from God’s perspective. We need to see time as the fullness time of the Great Time Lord for at the moment, did I tell you this? Time has us as its slave.
Time passes. Listen outside your window tonight, time passes. Unless we can hook our souls on the eternal God and Lord of Time, we shall remain so very troubled. Unless we can have faith in His Fullness Time, then we shall remain so very troubled. Unless we can embrace and testify to the mystery of such Fullness Time, such goodness time, such jubilee-marked, marching of time, such weeping through the night but joy cometh in the morning kind of time, then we shall remain slaves for all of our time in this body and in this world. We must understand God’s Fullness Time and we must see it punctuate our days with goodness.
On your lips tonight and on your tongue in the tingling morning, let this medicinal refrain be heard dancing upon your lips…………
Listen:- But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say, "You are my God." My times are in Your hand; Psalms 31:14-15NKJV
Pray:- Lord, in the fullness of time You sent forth You Son, Jesus Christ our Saviour into the world. Lord of time, you moved an empire to ensure Your Son was birthed in the prophesied place of Bethlehem. Lord of Time, You moved stars, You moved kings, You moved angel forces and a multitude of other magnificent and mundane things, butterfly and angel wings all to fulfill Your most unstoppable will. Lord of time, tomorrow, deliver me from the bondages and mummified bandages of time. In Jesus name I pray, Amen!
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