Times and Times: Day 3

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands…

Psalm 31:14,15

Maybe you are having a problem with my referring to the Bible as a story. There was a time when such a label would have bothered me. But then I came to understand that it is indeed a story—a true one—written by 60 authors, on 3 continents, in 3 languages and over a span of about 4,000 years.

So often we look at the Bible as the book in which we find our Sunday School heroes, The 23rd Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer and the Easter story. No great story line, for example Gone with the Wind, could be understood on the basis of a few random, out-of-context passages. If we have read the entire book, when Rhett Butler says, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” to Scarlett’s pleadings not to leave her, we know those are the words of a man whose heart has been used, abused and calloused over by a selfish woman. Those same words, read in isolation from the rest of the story line, make Rhett exhibit A in the male chauvinist hall of fame.

If we understand that the Bible has been written in linear time, one event after another and each one related to the other in some way, we can see how the Lord’s actions in the past relate to how He promises to act in the future. We also begin to see His attributes—wisdom, love, truth, mercy, justice—played out in the reality of a certain set of circumstances, not simply an isolated list of admirable qualities.

Most importantly, we see His purposes and his plan are bigger than one generation or one event. It is so hard for us to believe that God is present, let alone acting in any meaningful way, if we can’t see it in our time. But in Scripture, we rest in His time—as a reflection of His nature—bigger and better than ours.

It is one thing to know it; it is another thing to make it truth for our life.

If you open a box of dry cake mix into a bowl, and add the ingredients (water, a raw egg and oil, probably) called for in step 1 and expect it to look like the picture on the package, you will be disappointed. If your response is to throw the mixture down the sink and walk out of the kitchen in disgust, you will always believe Betty Crocker to be a fraud. Time is the essential ingredient to turn glop into glorious. In fact, even with cake baking, oven times vary! It is done when, both inside and out, the cake becomes what it was intended to be.

Nancy Shirah