Time Brings About Change

Gen 32:9 Then Jacob prayed, "God of my grandfather Abraham and God of my
father Isaac, hear me! You told me, LORD, to go back to my land and to my
relatives, and you would make everything go well for me.
Gen 32:10 I am not worth all the kindness and faithfulness that you have
shown me, your servant. I crossed the Jordan with nothing but a walking
stick, and now I have come back with these two groups.

During the twenty years that Jacob was away, he changed from being just a
sojourner, to becoming a man of great wealth. He seems to have become
a lot more humble, and he seems to have realized that the value of the
relationships with his family is worth more than the blessings he "cheated"
from his brother Esau. He was now willing to bestow blessing, rather than
receive it, in order to regain that relationship:

Gen 32:16 He divided them into herds and put one of his servants in charge
of each herd. He said to them, "Go ahead of me, and leave a space between
each herd and the one behind it."
Gen 32:17 He ordered the first servant, "When my brother Esau meets you and
asks, 'Who is your master? Where are you going? Who owns these animals in
front of you?'
Gen 32:18 you must answer, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. He sends
them as a present to his master Esau. Jacob himself is right behind us.' "

Esau had also become a man of wealth who had enough of his own, to not have
needed to accept these gifts. He had totally forgiven Jacob during
these years of absence:

Gen 33:4 But Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around him, and kissed
him. They were both crying.
Gen 33:5 When Esau looked around and saw the women and the children, he
asked, "Who are these people with you?" "These, sir, are the children whom
God has been good enough to give me," Jacob answered.
Gen 33:6 Then the concubines came up with their children and bowed down;
Gen 33:7 then Leah and her children came, and last of all Joseph and Rachel
came and bowed down.
Gen 33:8 Esau asked, "What about that other group I met? What did that
mean?" Jacob answered, "It was to gain your favor."
Gen 33:9 But Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; keep what you have."

Working for Nothing

Gen 29:14 Laban said, "Yes, indeed, you are my own flesh and blood." Jacob
stayed there a whole month.
Gen 29:15 Laban said to Jacob, "You shouldn't work for me for nothing just
because you are my relative. How much pay do you want?"

In today's world - or at least the world where I live as a consultant, time
is money. The idea of giving of your time to something, without getting
paid for it, is quite foreign. I don't mean to something as a volunteer
worker e.g. you help out with the local Animal Hospital or something. I
mean real work - doing what you do for a profession, for free.
Jacob spent his time working for Laban for no reward other than the
privilege to stay in his home, and to see what was around. He was basically
just working in order to know what his options were.

Sometimes we would be in a place where we will have to work without getting
paid for it, in order to get to know the environment in which we are
working.

Let the weeks, months and years speak against the moment

Gen 26:26 Abimelech came from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol
the commander of his army to see Isaac.
Gen 26:27 So Isaac asked, "Why have you now come to see me, when you were
so unfriendly to me before and made me leave your country?"
Gen 26:28 They answered, "Now we know that the LORD is with you, and we
think that there should be a solemn agreement between us. We want you to
promise
Gen 26:29 that you will not harm us, just as we did not harm you. We were
kind to you and let you go peacefully. Now it is clear that the LORD has
blessed you."

It was as time had passed, that the same people that did not honour Isaac
before, began to give him honour, because they could see that he had been
continually blessed. What is interesting is that the honour he received was
not because of what he had done, but because God's blessing was on him.

Very often we want to put up a big fight to restore a relationship as
quickly as possible, or to clean our name, or to prove that we weren't as
wrong as everyone is making us out to have been. But sometimes it is
necessary to first wait. Just keep walking in integrity. Let God's
blessing rest on your life, and over time, those that are worthy of your
friendship will begin to see His hand on your life, and recognize that maybe
you weren't so wrong, after all.

Time: Urgency and Misplaced Urgency

Abraham’s Servant understood urgency

Gen 24:12 He prayed, " LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today and keep your promise to my master.

I think this is the first place that I see in the Bible where anyone had a sense of urgency. His prayer was not just for eventual success, but success that day.

When having dinner that evening, we see that his sense of urgency continues:

Gen 24:33 When food was brought, the man said, "I will not eat until I have said what I have to say." Laban said, "Go on and speak."

And later:

Gen 24:55 But Rebecca's brother and her mother said, "Let her stay with us a week or ten days, and then she may go."

Gen 24:56 But he said, "Don't make us stay. The LORD has made my journey a success; let me go back to my master."

Esau’s Misplaced Urgency

Gen 25:32 Esau said, "All right! I am about to die; what good will my rights do me?"

Gen 25:33 Jacob answered, "First make a vow that you will give me your rights." Esau made the vow and gave his rights to Jacob.

Gen 25:34 Then Jacob gave him some bread and some of the soup. He ate and drank and then got up and left. That was all Esau cared about his rights as the first-born son.

I seriously doubt that Esau was “about to die.” He might have been really tired and hungry, and his physical desires gave him a sense of urgency.

I’m sure that if Esau showed a little bit of constraint, in less than one day’s time he would have been rested and fed – and still have had his birthright.

How do you judge urgency in your life?

In comparing these two pieces, we see a principle:

The way to determine what must be given urgent attention, should not be determined by the pressure of a moment, but by the weight of the importance of a task in view of God’s plan for our lives.

Abraham’s servant was on a quest that had an impact on world history. Finding the right wife for Isaac had a direct impact on the lineage of Jesus Christ. There was nothing that forced this urgency on him. He created this urgency within himself. Very often, if we don’t create within ourselves a sense of urgency for the really important things, they will just keep getting postponed and postponed – and our lives will never move forward. The really important things have a way of not imposing themselves on us. But their neglect has the effect of quietly filling our lives with a sense of meaninglessness.

Esau had come back from a hunting trip, famished – willing to do anything to fulfil his own immediate need for comfort. Often the things that shout the loudest at us, are not important enough to be allowed a prioritised position of urgency in our lives.

Often the urgent issues may seem as real and pressing as if your life depended on them. But take a moment to think about the long-term consequence of neglecting something important that you might be pushing aside, to deal with one more urgent issue, and make sure that you aren’t sacrificing your destiny for the sake of misplaced urgency.

Time: Enemy or Friend?

When I look at Abraham’s life, I see that the promise lingered – and as the promise lingered – so Abraham’s faith started weakening – so that he accepted his wife’s proposal to accept a concubine.

We read about Saul that ended up sacrificing to God, instead of waiting for Samuel to arrive, and that was one of the critical moments in his life that caused him to lose his throne.

We see that David, when faced with too much free time, allowed himself to get led away into temptation with Bathsheba.

Moses spent 40 days on the mountain, in intimate fellowship with God, having a revelation of God like probably no other human had ever had during his earthly sojourn.  However, during those same 40 days, Aaron and the rest of the Israelites lost their faith, and made an idol.

Each of us have been given a lifetime.  There are 70, maybe 80, sometimes as many as 110 years in our lifetime.  During this lifetime, there will be all sorts of things coming our way.  But whatever comes our way, we have a choice to make.  Are we going to use the time to get closer to God, or to allow ourselves to drift away from Him?

It has been my experience that, unless you make a conscious disciplined effort to build yourself up in your faith through regular reading of the Word, and prayer, time will pass you by, and you will find time becoming your enemy.  However, if you spend time, regularly, meditating on God’s Word, praying, listening for His voice, then time becomes a friend, drawing you every closer and closer to the Heart of God.

 

 

 

A time for everything

A time for everything

Gen 8:22 As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night."

These times were instituted, and when we used to be farmers, they were obvious to notice. It was obvious what was the meaning of harvesting, and what was the meaning of planting.

When looking at the cycle on a specialised farm, there is a time of preparing the soil, followed by planting, then a period of waiting, and then the harvest. When the harvest has been gathered, there is a tremendous sense of the year’s work being done. Then there is a time of waiting, before the next season starts.

A natural rhythm

That cycle created a natural rhythm, with two periods of tremendous effort working day and night during the planting and the harvesting seasons, a period of daily tending the crops – between these two, and a period of rest – after the harvest, before the next planting seaon.

But today we tend to live lives that just continue, from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. The biggest impact of the seasons changing is that we change from running air-conditioners to running heaters, and we change the clothes we wear. It has no impact on our work.

If I am not mistaken, then generally, early spring was the time to begin to till and plant. Summer was the time of growth, tending, watering etc. Autumn came the harvest, and then Winter, nothing much happened.

I wonder …

I wonder what would happen if I started living my life in this kind of seasonal cycle.

Spring I will begin to start up some writing projects and work the long hard hours throughout the summer, when the evenings are warm and beautiful and in the day you really don’t want to do much other than be in an air-conditioned office. Then by the time autumn comes, I’d be ready for publishing – so I’ll send out the manuscripts, and then go into winter, relaxing, having little to worry about, enjoying the cold winter nights with my family and using the cool winter days to regain my strength, doing a lot of reading and research – letting the ground of my brain rest, as it were. By the time spring came around, I would be bubbling over with ideas and thoughts.

I wonder how that would be.

The importance of Timing, in Time

Joh 21:3 Simon Peter said to the others, "I am going fishing." "We will come with you," they told him. So they went out in a boat, but all that night they did not catch a thing.

Joh 21:4 As the sun was rising, Jesus stood at the water's edge, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

Joh 21:5 Then he asked them, "Young men, haven't you caught anything?" "Not a thing," they answered.

Joh 21:6 He said to them, "Throw your net out on the right side of the boat, and you will catch some." So they threw the net out and could not pull it back in, because they had caught so many fish.

If they had known the future, they could have saved themselves a whole night of labour. But they didn't know. If they had received the Holy Spirit at that time, they could have possibly prayed about it, and God could have told them, that they need not work through the night. But would they believe that?

Sometimes God works independently of our own efforts

I have experienced a few times in my life, where I was facing a serious workload and some important deadlines, pushing myself to go with one or two hours of sleep per night for weeks on end, and then at some point, I feel God telling me to just rest. Quite a few times has it then happened, that the deadline suddenly was moved. The meeting I was preparing for, was postponed, or a project was cancelled or postponed.

Financially, I have also experienced that I would work and work and work, and business would just not seem to run the way I want it to run. My finances would be tight – in fact, going backwards – and the suddenly something would happen, and there would be a flow of money from a totally unexpected source. As if God is reminding me, that He ultimately remains the provider.

This is not a pattern, though

To return to this scripture: We must also note that this was not a pattern. This is recorded to have happened twice, in their entire lives as fishermen. So it has also been in my life. Diligence and hard work, as a key to success, seems to be a pattern, but God coming through at times, and sudden success overtaking us, almost totally independent of our own efforts, does sometimes happen.

Staying close to God can save you a lot of time

We have the advantage over these disciples today, that we have the Holy Spirit, and we can learn to listen for the Shepherd’s voice, at all times. If they could have asked Jesus the previous evening, they could have had a good night’s sleep, and just gone out for half an hour the next day, getting the same results as they got from a whole night’s toil. So I think the principle for us to take away from this, is to keep in step with God. Take time to pray and know what God is doing, and align ourselves with that, continually. That way, we could save ourselves many hours of needless toil.

Unless the Lord builds the house …

This ties in nicely with this scripture:

Psa 127:1 If the LORD does not build the house, the work of the builders is useless; if the LORD does not protect the city, it does no good for the sentries to stand guard.

Psa 127:2 It is useless to work so hard for a living, getting up early and going to bed late. For the LORD provides for those he loves, while they are asleep.

Worry or Grow?

On Wednesday, I commented on the text about serving two masters, in Matthew 6:24.

That piece is directly followed by this:

Mat 6:25 "This is why I tell you: do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn't life worth more than food? And isn't the body worth more than clothes?

Mat 6:26 Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren't you worth much more than birds?

Mat 6:27 Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?

Mat 6:28 "And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves.

Mat 6:29 But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.

Mat 6:30 It is God who clothes the wild grass---grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have!

Mat 6:31 "So do not start worrying: 'Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?'

Mat 6:32 (These are the things the pagans are always concerned about.) Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things.

Mat 6:33 Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.

Mat 6:34 So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings.

The principle of not serving two masters, is directly followed by the principle of “do not worry.”

This is why …

The transition from the one principle to the next, is in the words “This is why I tell you …”

So the reason we are not to worry, is because you cannot serve two masters. Jesus knew that the master you fear the most, is the one you are going to serve. Therefore, if your life is filled with worry about your daily necessities, you will serve money.

The Link Back to the curse of Genesis

The alternative focus points of our thoughts, that Jesus gives us, are the examples of the seemingly effortless growth of nature: The grass and the lilies. He seems to be very directly addressing the curse of Genesis. Compare these two sections:

Gen 3:17 And he said to the man, "You listened to your wife and ate the fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you.

Gen 3:18 It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants.

Gen 3:19 You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again."

Mat 6:28 "And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves.

Mat 6:29 But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.

How will you spend your time?

Now once again, the question could arise – what does all of this have to do with time? Well, the way I see it, is that Jesus is trying to teach us that we have one of two ways to spend our time, and this is where the image of the lilies and the grass comes in. The first way, which is not the preferable way, and which leads us to serving money, is by worrying about our daily necessities. The second way, which is the way to serve God, is to discover His will for our lives, and to grow. The lilies and the grass look the way they look, because they naturally grow in the way that God had designed them to grow. They use that which God provides, to grow in the way they should. And that is enough.

When we seek God’s kingdom, firstly in our own life, then we will grow in the way that God wants us to grow – and soon we will be a display of His glory, just like the lilies and the grass. That is how we should be spending our time.

Servitude and Mastery

Mat 6:24 "You cannot be a slave of two masters; you will hate one and love the other; you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

What is your relationship with money?

One of my students made this comment the other day:

“You can stand in one of two relationships with money: Either money serves you, or you serve money.”

Matthew Blewett once made a comment that, you should never work for money; money should work for you.

If this is a study of time, then why bring money into it? For three reasons:

- I have always found that money and time seems to be related. When my budget is in a mess, my schedule tends to also be in a mess.

- Most of us spend most of our time, working for money. We get paid every month, which is a time period, for working a certain amount of hours every day – once again, time.

- Effectively, we have sold a certain portion of our time to an employer. There is a contract that x-amount of my hours belongs to that employer every month, for a certain amount of pay. This is not quite the same, but also not totally different, to slavery. It’s just part-time slavery and the person doing the selling is the slave himself.

So should I not spend my time working at all, then?

Jesus said that I couldn’t serve God and money. The image He used was that of slavery. A slave belonged wholly to his master. I made a comment above, about the fact that working for an employer, is not very different from slavery. But we have to work. We have to sell some of our time and energy to someone, to earn the money to put bread on the table. Surely, Jesus was not proposing that we should just pray and go around preaching the gospel all day?

Choosing the right Master makes all the difference

I want to propose that the difference really lies not so much in what you do, as in the attitude of your heart. The “Master” that you serve, has nothing to do with who signs your pay-cheque. It has to do with who, or what, you are really doing it for. When I work another hour, because I really want the money, then I am serving that money. However, when I work another hour because I really believe that God wants me to get that work done, for His Glory, then I am working for God.

I am doing exactly the same thing, but for two different masters, and that makes all the difference.

This seems to be aligned with the concept of slavery and freedom. The effort in the Promised Land might have been the same. They could still have been carrying stones and bricks, mixing mortar, etc. but in the Promised Land, they were doing it to build their own cities, whereas in Egypt, they were doing it as slaves to build the cities of others.

A suitable companion to help

Gen 2:18  Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him."

When attacking this monster of time, I need to understand that the family is a team.  We need to understand how the others’ time is also under attack, and we need to be fighting together, to protect each others’ time from getting stolen.

 

The original curse included a curse of my time

There was a curse of our time

Gen 3:17 And he said to the man, "You listened to your wife and ate the fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you.

Gen 3:18 It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants.

Gen 3:19 You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed.

So has this curse been removed, or are we still living under this curse?

Are we still supposed to be fighting weeds and thorns, and do we still have to work hard all our lives to make it produce enough?

What does Jesus do with this curse?

This surely seems to have been the practical reality in my life, and in the lives of most people. But what is the scriptural truth here? What happened in the New Testament with this curse?

Mat 6:25 "This is why I tell you: do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn't life worth more than food? And isn't the body worth more than clothes?

Mat 6:26 Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren't you worth much more than birds?

Mat 6:27 Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?

Mat 6:28 "And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves.

Mat 6:29 But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.

Mat 6:30 It is God who clothes the wild grass---grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have!

Mat 6:31 "So do not start worrying: 'Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?'

Mat 6:32 (These are the things the pagans are always concerned about.) Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things.

Mat 6:33 Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.

Mat 6:34 So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings.

It seems to me that Jesus calls us to no longer focus on getting the soil to produce something, but to focus on knowing God's will – seeking His Kingdom, and what He requires of me. God will then let the earth produce that which I need.

So what changes?

Does this mean that we don’t have to work any more?

I think not, because if we look at Jesus’ example, we see that he never stopped working. However, I think there is a change in priority that takes place. Survival is no longer the focus. God’s will becomes the focus, and survival is then guaranteed.

Systematic Progress in Creation

When we look at God’s process of creation, we see that God worked systematically during those six days.

· He didn’t try to do things all at the same time.

· He built things in an order that allowed him to build one thing upon another.

· He created one thing to the point where it was ready to support the next level of things He would create.

I also notice that He created things in such a way that it would sustain itself.

To read the creation story on-line, you can go here: The Creation Story