It's About Time

Ever since I was a boy, I have been able to guess time pretty closely without looking at a watch. Seeing the sun, sensing the approaching darkness, or thinking for a moment about how long I have been doing something, usually gives me an accurate sense of what time it is.

As a preacher, it’s important to know when my sermon should end. Not knowing when enough is enough does more to take away the effectiveness of a message than anything other than exaggeration or shouting. It is insulting to bore people or continually repeat yourself in a conversation or a church service.

For comedians, knowing the pacing of a joke is vital. For a baseball player, the timing required to hit a fastball is essential. In football, the timing of a screen pass or draw play can be the difference between a touchdown and a loss of yardage.

When the timing of a phone call or a message is good, it increases its impact. Since the Lord knows what people need and when they need it, staying close to the Lord and obeying the prompting of the Spirit makes everything we do to bless people more effective.

“Waiting on the Lord” is a phrase we use that indicates God speaks to us when he decides the time is right. Since God is omnipresent and always with us, waiting on the Lord implies the presence of the Holy Spirit can be manifest at times and distant at other times.

Those who wait on the Lord, renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31). Our strength is renewed by the Spirit when he imparts grace to us. We partner with the Lord who gives us energy or gives us the revelation we really need. As Paul says in Colossians 1:29, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.  

When I go salmon fishing there are times when the salmon are biting constantly and other times when the bites are few and far between. Those times can be dictated by tide changes which move bait fish in from the deeper water. If the ocean below our boat fills with anchovies, chances are the salmon will chase them and we will soon be catching the salmon.

Conversely, if sea lions or orcas swim alongside our boat, they will scatter the salmon like a shotgun blast scatters a flock of birds. You can fish all you want, but you probably won’t be landing many salmon when predators are lurking nearby. Jesus said he will make us fishers of men.

In January, the calendar changed and our government changed. Beyond that, most of us can sense the times we live in are changing significantly. Watching the wildfires in LA burn hillsides and neighborhoods was an apocalyptic experience.

The Lord said 2000 years ago that the earth will be destroyed by fire (II Peter 3:7). It says in the next verse “A day in the eyes of the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day” (II Peter 3:8).  Therefore, the Lord may gradually turn up the heat on the earth, perhaps as a wake-up call which will lead people to repentance before the end.

You can call this climate change, or the coming judgment, either way, the time is right for us to call people to repentance so they can be saved while they still have a chance to experience the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

I’ve been thinking about the brevity of life because I have had three friends die suddenly in the last couple of months. I recently joined a few hundred people who gathered at the Bridge Church in Santa Rosa to honor Mike Whitwell. Mike had a barber shop on Grant Avenue in Novato where he served customers five days a week, fifty weeks a year for the last forty-eight years. Mike loved to talk with his customers about the Lord, their families, their churches, and the S.F. Giants.

Mike cut hair at the Santa Rosa Rescue Mission on his day off once a month for over twenty years. He did local outreaches with his church and took numerous mission trips to Mexico where he cut hair for the people his team worked with.

I estimate Mike did over 150,000 haircuts through the years. He did more counseling than most counselors and shared Jesus with more people than many evangelists. In the process, he bore great fruit and enjoyed life to the full.

Mike loved what he was doing because he loved connecting with people while he served them. He wasn’t in a hurry to get to the next customer because every person mattered to him. If you enjoy your work, whatever it is, that is the gift of God.

Mike ran a cash business with no advance appointments. He served whoever was ready to sit in his chair next. He even kept books with the names and dates of every haircut he ever gave. He recorded the names because he was proud to serve each of his clients, no matter what their status in life.

God has a book of names as well. It’s called the Lamb’s Book of Life. He puts our names into it when we trust Jesus Christ as our savior and Lord. Jesus said to his disciples rejoice that your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20).

If you haven’t found fulfillment in your work, you should focus more on helping people find eternal life. Serving the Lord indeed comes with many challenges, but it also comes with a reward of great joy. The time is right. This is the day of salvation.

Time is our most valuable resource and it’s one thing we cannot increase no matter how hard we try. Working out and eating well can help us stay healthy, but the best way to increase the quality of our lives is to focus on blessing the people we spend our time with. We cannot increase the number of our days, but our time can be enriched by the love we share with one another. This is a blessing from the God we serve.

I want to close with a confession. In a leadership meeting not long ago, I recommended we take action on a specific topic. The pastor leading the meeting, who loves me responded, “For once Mark, you are not too far ahead of the Lord.”

I’m not always good at knowing God’s timing. However, I believe its possible to keep growing in this grace as we follow Jesus and walk in the Spirit.