Life has seasons that run their course almost as quickly and as often as winter turns to spring here in the southern United States. From daughter to sister, bride to mother, empty nester to Lolly, my fifty-five years seem but a breath until I begin to reminisce. Then I wonder how such a wealth of experiences can be fitted into one lifetime? Each era can be subdivided again and again, like the day planners I kept as a college student and during each of my pregnancies. Sometimes repetitious but always something worth remembering, at least at the time. Having discovered one of these recently, I’m only slightly embarrassed by things I thought noteworthy.
We will set our clocks forward on Sunday and move an hour of daylight from the beginning to the end of the day, effectively stealing another hour of rest from ourselves and leaving us as exhausted as ever. Since the winter solstice, days are steadily growing longer. There’s a rhythm to the rotation of the planets around our sun, a God-ordained rhythm set in motion at creation. God who said to Adam and to Noah fill the earth and subdue it sustains the rhythm and all life as we know it.
“For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory.
All glory to him forever! Amen.”
Romans 11:36 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.11.36.NLT
Eternal God existed before us, His creation. Man was formed from dust and woman was taken from man by the hand of God. We are given life by the very breath of God still. What medical science terms involuntary, the act of breathing, hearts beating, synapses firing, God created and sustains, in perfect rhythm with all of creation.
““He is the God who made the world and everything in it.
Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs.
He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.
From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth.
He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.
For in him we live and move and exist.
As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”
Acts of the Apostles 17:24-28 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/act.17.28.NLT
“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
Galatians 5:25 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/gal.5.25.NIRV
Jesus was with God in the beginning. He was not a divine afterthought, a course correction, or a plan B. The Bible uses a phrase which translated in old English reads in the fullness of time. Later translations render phrases like at just the right time or at the proper time. Think opportune time. God chose the perfect moment in history, perfectly situated in the rhythm of the cosmos, to insert Himself into our finite world to right our greatest wrong and reconcile us to Himself.
“but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,”
Galatians 4:4 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/gal.4.4.KJV
“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Romans 5:6 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/rom.5.6.KJV
Jesus existed, fully God and fully man on the earth to become the only sacrifice necessary for forgiveness of sin. He defeated death and the grave by His mighty power and He returned to heaven to await the great consummation, when God’s full purpose will be enacted in the heavens and on earth.
“And because of God’s unfailing purpose, this detailed plan will reign supreme through every period of time until the fulfillment of all the ages finally reaches its climax—when God makes all things new in all of heaven and earth through Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 1:10 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/eph.1.10.TPT
Jesus explained it to His first followers this way.
““Don’t worry or surrender to your fear.
For you’ve believed in God, now trust and believe in me also.
My Father’s house has many dwelling places.
If it were otherwise, I would tell you plainly, because I go to prepare a place for you.
And when everything is ready, I will come back and take you to myself so that you will be where I am.
And you already know the way to the place where I’m going.”
Jesus explained, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, and I am the Life.
No one comes next to the Father except through union with me.
To know me is to know my Father too.”
John 14:1-4, 6 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jhn.14.1-6.TPT
Jesus’s teaching left His first followers scratching their heads on more than one occasion. In the gospel given his name, John writes repeatedly that the apostles did not understand until later, after Jesus’s resurrection or ascension that He was fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. The express function of the Holy Spirit is to fulfill God’s promise to be with His children and, as Jesus promised, to lead us into all Truth. It is more a dawning than a download. To know God and to know His Word takes time. When we are impatient, we focus more on our efforts than on God’s presence with us. When we demand that He show up in our crises or our quiet times, we are no different than the Pharisees demanding a sign.
But when we discipline ourselves to go to Him with our thoughts and to sit with Him in His, He begins to sharpen our focus, enabling us to see bits of the immense tapestry He is weaving. He who knit me together in my mother’s womb, the One who was and is and is to come, the first and the last, the Author and Finisher of my faith, does not sit wringing his hands, pulling out stitch after stitch to refashion His Masterpiece. In Christ, I am a new creation.
“For we are God’s masterpiece.
He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
Ephesians 2:10 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.2.10.NLT
“As they stared into the sky, watching Jesus ascend, two men in white robes suddenly appeared beside them.
They told the startled disciples, “Galileans, why are you staring up into the sky?
Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but he will come back in the same way that you saw him ascend.””
Acts 1:10-11 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/act.1.10-11.TPT
“So never forget both the prophecies spoken by the holy prophets of old and the teaching of our Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.
Above all, you must understand that in the last days mockers will multiply, chasing after their evil desires.
They will say, “So what about this promise of his coming?
Our ancestors are dead and buried, yet everything is still the same as it was since from the beginning of time until now.”
But they conveniently overlook that from the beginning, the heavens and earth were created by God’s word.
He spoke and the dry ground separated from the waters.
Then long afterward he destroyed the world with a tremendous flood by those very waters.
And now, by the same powerful word, the heavens and the earth are reserved for fire, being kept for judgment day, when all the ungodly will perish.
So, dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape your notice: a single day counts like a thousand years to the Lord Yahweh, and a thousand years counts as one day.
This means that, contrary to man’s perspective, the Lord is not late with his promise to return, as some measure lateness.
But rather, his “delay” simply reveals his loving patience toward you, because he does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:2-9 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/2pe.3.2-9.TPT
“In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He existed in the beginning with God.
God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.
The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish or comprehend it.
So the Word became human and made his home among us.
He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.
And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
John 1:1-5, 14 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.1.14.NLT
“The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.”
Psalms 19:1-4 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.19.1-4.NLT
“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?
Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.
You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority— the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.”
Psalms 8:3-6, 8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.8.3-8.NLT
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body.
He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything.
For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”
Colossians 1:15-20 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/col.1.15-20.NLT
““For my thoughts about mercy are not like your thoughts, and my ways are different from yours.
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so my ways and my thoughts are higher than yours.
As the snow and rain that fall from heaven do not return until they have accomplished their purpose, soaking the earth and causing it to sprout with new life, providing seed to sow and bread to eat.
So also will be the word that I speak; it does not return to me unfulfilled.
My word performs my purpose and fulfills the mission I sent it out to accomplish.””
Isaiah 55:8-11 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/isa.55.8-10.TPT
“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
Galatians 5:25 NIRV
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