Unlike our Creator, human beings are finite creatures, bound by time and space. It seems that we have either too little time or too much time. We arrive early or late, but seldom exactly on time. Time is a facet of human life and we will always have to contend with it, even if we are blessed with a smartphone. Because of that fact of life, time is one of the enemies of spiritual discernment.
We had a very nice chain of department stores in Texas called Joske’s. Once, when Gay and I were visiting San Antonio, I had failed to pack any underwear in my suitcase. Not a problem! There was a Joske’s store near the Alamo where I could buy what I needed.
But when we came to the display where the men’s underwear should have been, they had nothing remotely near my size. I asked the sales clerk to check the inventory. She said, “It’s no use. Everything we have is on the shelf. It’s been this way since we started using the ‘just in time’ approach to our inventory.”
As far as I was concerned, it was “time” and the system wasn’t working for me. We went to J.C. Penney and found what I needed.
When things don't happen on our schedule, or we find ourselves feeling that the time's not right, or we have too little time for discernment before a decision must be made, or we feel that discernment is taking too long, what’s new? Time is a factor of human life and there is no escaping it.
Here’s the good news; God knows how much time we have because, after all, God created us. So, when we are dealing with God, besides chronos, the time we count with clocks and calendars, we are also granted kairos, the kind of time God seems to like best – the “right amount” of time.
The biblical number forty is often used to signify a kairos experience. The Great Flood lasted forty days and forty nights. God’s Hebrew children wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights and stayed with the apostles forty days and forty nights after the Resurrection. In every case, the biblical account seems to say that these incidences took exactly the right amount of time. And God never shows up late!
When we set out to spend time in spiritual discernment, we have a natural impulse to take hold of the problem of time by the wrong end. We think of time spent in discernment as our time with God. I invite you to consider that time spent in discernment is God’s time with us. With all God has to do throughout the cosmos, God makes kairos for us when we are facing a decision that requires spiritual discernment. If somebody shows up late for such an appointment, it’s not going to be God.
After complaining about how little time God gives us, the Psalmist prays, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12). In other words, since this is the way things operate in God’s administrative policy, we need to be careful to put whatever chronological time we have at the service of the God of kairos, who has a way of making just the right amount of time to accomplish the divine purpose in our lives. For, as the Psalmist points out, “a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). God's time is not measured by our standards! We spend time. God makes time. It's an important distinction and those who are wise recognize that distinction when engaging in spiritual discernment.
God has made time today for you to spend in discernment. How will you spend that time? My prayer for you today is that you will devote whatever time you have, whether it seems too little or too much, to spiritual discernment with the One who has the power to make it just exactly the right amount that is required.
The English hymn writer, Isaac Watts, paraphrased Psalm 90 in his great hymn, O God, Our Help in Ages Past.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.