Not everyone can relate to old age, but we all understand the limitations of this life. Now looking back from the other side of seventy-five I see things differently than before. This side is becoming brighter; God is becoming more real; and life is more than I ever thought it could be. What difference does time make? ~ None unless you know that God is in it.
Time is not what we make it. It all began with God, the Father, as creator. It all belongs to Him. Each lifespan is time that He gives individually for His purpose and plan. In a short time His work in me will be completed. He will move me up to His glory. Another will fill the space that I filled here on earth. Now, He is still teaching me who He is and showing me what He is doing, in my own life and the lives of others.
The Spaces We Fill
Time is spent in the spaces we fill. If we are where God wants us to be we receive the blessings of His promises while we are here. Being basically sequestered now in the home with Jerry is proving to be the space and the blessing that the Lord planned for us in our marriage. My years of time spent away from the home looking for fulfillment were years that the Lord could not bless as He might have. The world beacons us. Satan deceives us within our culture to keep us in the dark, from the knowledge and blessing of fellowship and communion with our God. We as wives are tempted and drawn to what we see out there; and miss what He has for us in the home as the help-mate for our husbands.
Years ago I could only see the madness and the sadness of this world. Now I am experiencing the Lord’s gladness in the middle of it all. Jerry and I are no longer able to travel long distances. We venture out to shop one or two days a week; but the highlight of our week is the Lord’s Day, for church and a day of public and private worship that is different from the other days. More and more this is becoming our prelude and practice for that eternal worship that the Lord has promised. During the week we are in His word and in prayer, interceding and in touch by email and phone to those in need of the Lord’s presence, power, mercy and grace. This time with Him is glorious as we wait for His call to “come up higher.”
(The following is an excerpt from A Month to Live ~ A Father’s Last Words)
“At 5:30, Daddy was looking at the large clock on the wall facing his bed. At 6:00 he looked again.
I asked him why he was looking at the clock.
He said, “To see how much time is left.”
He did not look at the clock again.
How can I forget those words? Never before has time meant to me what it does now. Daddy realized in the last days of his life how important time is. His prompting will be a legacy to me; and an ever-present part of my living. I believe, as Daddy learned, that God gives everyone the right amount of time for each life. The person who waits until he is dying to learn how to live is wasting precious God-given life. Resisting the power of God’s Spirit to make us what He wants us to be is only a prelude to dying.
It is in the last stages that we would give up everything to go back and do it all differently.
Andrew Murray, in “Waiting on God,” writes, “The one object for which God gives life to man is that in them He might prove and show forth His wisdom, power, and goodness.” This little book came to me too late to share with Daddy. He would have benefited from it if he could have read it before having several strokes. (Maybe he did understand when he needed to. He tried reading it, but gave no indication that he could share what he had read.)”
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” Acts 17:24-26
