Time was like a handful of water; no matter how tight you hold your fingers together, it soon slipped through and left you dry.”
–Mike Roarke (Silent Drums)
“Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.”
–Proverbs 27:1 (NKJV)
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Can you believe it, corona or not, that the year is half over? I can imagine that for some of you the plans for year have gone askew. Maybe a trip postponed, maybe an event not quite what you expected, maybe some things even cancelled. Some of you are perhaps living in quandary and some in fear. It can be easy for us to forget that we are walking on the road that the Lord has prepared; that we are on our way to heaven. Don’t let fear and doubt assail you! Look to the Lord.
In saying that I happened to be looking at a book that I read many years ago by George Matheson. I saw a thought based on words that the Holy Spirit gave to Peter.
“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
–2 Peter 3:8 (NKJV)
So this Friday, this last day of July, I want to share some of the thoughts about this verse from the pen of George Matheson. The years of youth are exciting and full of energy. Think of Peter bounding on the waves. He wanted to build a tabernacle upon the mountain. He said he would fight to the finish (and, indeed, he would, but it would be a different sort of fight). Youth have a tendency to look at life with a telescope–“to see a thousand years as one day.”
“The aim of youth was to diminish great things–to see a thousand years as one day. But with age thee has come to him the other side of the picture–the magnifying of little things. The microscope takes the place of the telescope. He had begun by seeing big things as trifles; he ends by seeing trifles as big things. To the eye of his youth a thousand years were as one day; to the eye of his age one day is as a thousand years.”
“I should like my latest experience to be that of Peter–the experience of God’s microscope. I need it in old age more than in youth. In age I have the sense of wasted years and little time to retrieve them. I am deterred from amendment by despair. How can the short time at my command outweigh the long years I have squandered! How grateful is the answer in God’s microscope–‘One day is as a thousand years!’ Thy Father says to thy soul: ‘I measure not thy path by length of time. One day is My courts can retrace the steps of a thousand days outside My courts. Hast thou pondered the meaning of the eleventh hour! Hast thou considered the promise to the penitent, ‘To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!’ Thinkest thou he got too generous measure! He did not. There was nothing pretermitted from his discipline; it was only compresses. He saw the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time–not in their glory but in their unrighteousness. There are for him and for thee moments of acceleration–times when I bind yesterday and to-day and to-morrow. Say not it is too late to retrace so long a journey! My Spirit has wings. One day in My chariot can bring thee home–home to thy first purity. Spring into My chariot, thou that hast wandered far astray! Spring into My chariot, and I will bear thee back in a night–back to the child Jesus, back to the angels of Bethlehem, back to the shepherd’s song! One hour with Me will redeem a thousand years.'”
Did you catch that one phrase? Look again, “I measure not thy path by length of time.” Time! Time that mysterious concept, and I won’t spend time philosophizing on it, but we get caught up in time–too early, too late, not enough… We must remember that God is outside of time. Your ten years might be the same as my seventy years. It is sort of like the story that Jesus told of the workers. Those hired the last hour of the day received the same wages as those hired to work the full day.
Do what we are called to do this day. This is the day that counts! There may not be a tomorrow–do today! The year is half gone, despite the situation do what you are called to do. Do not delay…walk the path the Lord has for you and always remember that He is there with you.