A Thousand Years

This is about today.  It’s not about tomorrow or next week or next year or a thousand years from now.  It’s about today. 

Today I want to live a thousand years.

Curious comment, huh?  I’ve simply notice lately how time has gotten away from me; away from my rule.  It’s slippery like that.  And not just minutes and hours.  Whole days seem to disappear in an instant…or they drag out and seem to take forever to end.  And in getting away from my rule, time has ruled me.  I become…

Anxious…  Pressed… 

Impatient…  Stressed…  

“Where’s a clock…what time is it? 

Where’s my calendar…where am I supposed to be?”

All the while, joy and thanksgiving and the things that grow real relationships are buried under my hastening.  And at day’s end…

I vanish into anything mindless…

…anything that’ll stop time or

loosen the collar just enough to take

a deep

breath.

Well, not today.  Today I want to live by another time and another speed. 

Recently I was reminded that God’s time and God’s speed are on a whole different plane than our time and our speed.  Can you guess where I’m heading?

Peter wrote some peculiar things to the Church in his second letter.  His thoughts – God’s thoughts – on the end times are not the least of these.  2 Peter 3:1-13 is a context which details them a bit.  Hidden under the fray of theological questions is a wonderful and well known passage on time and patience.  Verse 8 goes like this:

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

24 hours or 8,760,000 hours; to God, same diff.  Apparently my charted out grid of hours and days and years blurs together for God into seasons and ages and eras. 

My minutes are His moments.

And He doesn’t appear the least bit anxious or impatient that they pass in common rhythm.  Watch…verse 9 goes like this:   

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness…”

I soooo count slowness, with foot taps and thumb twiddles and clock checks.  Eugene Peterson uses “late” instead of “slow” in The Message.  Well, God is not running late or slow.  He isn’t checking his watch to insure timeliness or rushing history toward a destination.  He’s waiting…verse 9 continues:

“…patient…”

“… toward you…”

Toward me.

I wrangle with people and places and things like they’re thieves stealing my precious minutes.  Meanwhile, God’s waiting patiently on me in every moment.

And at this point it occurs to me, I’ve been duped.  As I wrangle; as the tug-of-war between me and the things in time rages, rope tight pulling me toward the pit, all my joy and thanksgiving fade into a grayish rush of anxiety and impatience. 

All this time I’ve accused people and places and things

of thieving away my minutes where busy-ness gets done

while my real enemy, God’s Enemy, is thieving away my moments

where joy and thanksgiving become.

Oh, the shame in this admission.  I’ve turned around and noticed hundreds of people; real people, who I’ve missed in my pursuit of saving time or wasting time.

So God is “patient toward me.”  Know why?  Watch…verse 9 finishes:

“…not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

The shame just thickened. 

He is patient toward the Christian; me, maybe you, because He would wish hell upon no one.  Rather, God would wish that everyone might “reach repentance,” the threshold unto redemption by the blood of Christ Jesus.

Did you catch it?  The implication of God’s patience toward me as one already redeemed?

He's patient toward me, waiting for me to stop and help others reach repentance!  I’m racing about enslaved to these minutes on the clock; never late to my destination, but never fully arriving either.  All the while, as I’m pulling and being pulled along, I’m flying by folks that God wishes to reach repentance.  

Saving minutes, missing moments.

Not today.  Today I will live by God’s time and God’s speed. 

Today I will live a thousand years.