“Beloved, do not let this escape your attention: with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some understand slowness.” (Second Epistle of St. Peter, Ch. 3, v. 8-9a*)
Do you divide your days, weeks, and months into good and bad? For instance, do you have memories of a year you consider “the worst/best year of my life so far!”? Do you have the feeling that time passes faster or slower than usual at times? During those days or months you will remember as very good, time slips through your fingers, whereas bad times seem endless, as if they will never end. But what happens with the days we will never remember, those we don’t classify as good or bad but ordinary? They are the “ballast” that simply fills our age, biography, daily life—seeming unnecessary and tedious because we don’t see anything special in them. We tend to live for “big moments,” when everything seems great and meaningful. However, when nothing seems to happen, when we feel blocked, tired, stuck, and bored, having forgotten who we really are and what our life's purpose is, we find ourselves lacking the energy or motivation to keep fighting. But it’s not really that way.
When the Apostle Peter speaks to believers in his second epistle, he raises the issue of "the Day of the Lord," about which "in the last days, scoffers will come, following their own desires, saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation.'” (Second Epistle of St. Peter, Ch. 3, v. 3b-4*) It’s easy to fall into the idea that our life or the life of someone else holds little meaning or value. This happens when we look at things piecemeal, myopically, from the perspective of our own generation or even our century. What if our lives and those of everyone else, living and deceased, actually form one giant puzzle, where each part fits into its time and place, creating the beautiful picture of God's magnificent plan for the world? Everything might look shapeless, incomplete, or undecipherable still because there are more puzzle pieces our great Creator is molding to put in place and reveal the full picture. From this view, time for Him isn't measured in minutes, hours, days, or years, but in preparation and work on human souls, making them fit for their time and place. This explains the thousands of years that may seem like a monotonous continuum for some but pass like a day filled with events and personal transformation for others. Sometimes these most monotonous days, which we will never remember for any special event, when gathered together, lead to that day which will give meaning to our birth and death. It's not God delaying what we long for. He patiently works in us, bringing us to a moment when we will be ready to receive the desired outcome and use it wisely, to the benefit of others included in the plan.
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Book of Isaiah, Ch. 55, v. 8-9*) This means that from God's perspective and timelessness, everything appears very differently; the events in our lives have different meanings and lead to entirely unforeseen outcomes for us. The height of His view uncovers a much different picture, which will be revealed to us in heaven one day. For now, while our human eyes can see only a few steps ahead and have great difficulty giving us a real picture and value of events in our personal life or in the world as a whole, it encourages us to remind ourselves that "God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything." (First Epistle of St. John, Ch. 3, v. 20b*)
Weekly Challenge: Maybe you work from home or are on vacation, and all days start looking the same. Notice what you do routinely every day—work, cleaning, shopping, repairing, watching TV, spending time online. Can you pick a day of the week to break from these routines and give yourself a creative pause with God's word? Here are some ideas: create a plaque or puzzle with a verse, home theater with a Bible story (if you have children), study a favorite passage or biblical term using the original text. Here’s a link to James Strong's online dictionary with biblical terms from Hebrew.
*The Bible citations are according to the text of the Bible, new translation from the original languages © Bulgarian Bible Society 2013.
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