OUR author is teaching us about the principle of time in our study in the Principles of Spiritual Growth. Last week he commented that we think we are not making progress unless they are swiftly and constantly forging ahead. In this “just do it” society we are prone toward the building of confidence, when we ought to have “no confidence in the flesh.” It seems that we always have to be about doing things and great accomplishments!! The author makes a great statement in saying, we must learn [Him], and then leaning on the Lord as he addresses the need for maturity that takes time. We are in such a hurry to make things happens. I see that is a previous study that I made a marginal note here in the book next the where the author said, Thus Moses was forty years. On his first start he had to run away. My marginal note reads that Noah lived a whole life before the flood, never seeing a convert. God has a plan and purpose for each of us, the chief of which is conformity to His Son (Rom. 8:29) and doing all things to His glory (1Cor 10:31). Conformity to and glory unto Christ is, or ought to be, our personal and corporate Purpose/Mission Statement. “Time” and timing are critical aspects in accomplishing both.
OUR author uses one of my favorite metaphors in today’s consideration to illustration this point, as you will see as you read on.
MAY the Lord bless our consideration and advance in the Principle of Time.
In the wondrous blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa. 30:15 & Job 2:10
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Chapter 2—TIME …..continued
Since the Christian life matures and becomes fruitful by the principle of growth (see II Pet. 3:18) rather than by struggle and “experiences,” much time is involved. Unless we see and acquiesce to this, there is bound to be constant frustration, to say nothing of resistance to our Father’s development processes for us. Dr. A. H. Strong illustrates for us: “A student asked the President of his school whether he could not take a shorter course than the one prescribed. ‘Oh yes,’ replied the President, ‘but then it depends upon what you want to be. When God wants to make an oak, He takes a hundred years, but when He wants to make a squash, He takes six months.’” Strong also wisely points out to us that, “growth is not a uniform thing in the tree or in the Christian. In some single months there is more growth than in all the year besides. During the rest of the year, however, there is solidification, without which the green timber would be useless. The period of rapid growth, when woody fiber is actually deposited between the bark and the trunk, occupies but four to six weeks in May, June and July.”
Let’s settle it once and for all—there are no shortcuts to reality! A meteor is on a shortcut as it proceeds to burn out, but not a star, with its steady light so often depended on by navigators. Unless the time factor is acknowledged from the heart, there is always danger of turning to the false enticement of a shortcut via the means of “experiences” and “blessings,” where one becomes pathetically enmeshed in the vortex of ever-changing feelings, adrift from the moorings of scriptural facts. ….. to be continued
