At the Proper Time

 

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.” 1 Peter 5:6

Right now— at this stage of life— I have a lot of everything.  Except, of course, time and money.  But in all else, I feel overwhelmed.

For example, I have LOTS of time with my children.  So. Much. Time.  So why, Lord, can’t I reserve a handful of these 2 A.M. snuggles for my sixty-year-old self who undoubtedly will yearn for and miss these tiny hugs?

And I now have more than enough self-assuredness. So why, Lord, can’t I scoop some of this self-confidence up and heap it onto my tweens, teens and twenties when I didn’t have enough of it?

I have an over-abundance of demands on my time: home projects, volunteer activities, things to learn, places to go.  So why can’t I give one here and one there, to the slower season of my life that’s surely around the corner, or to my college self that sat around for hours on end?

What was God thinking when He designed it this way?  

I spent childhood wishing myself into the next stage of life.  If only I was in high school.  If only I was in college.  It was a pursuit of “arriving,” a life somewhat unsettled as it anticipated the future.  The roller coaster click, click, clicking toward the crest.  It hadn’t really started yet.  

Near the top, I made some huge life choices that set my course— I chose a job, a person, a city.  We made a baby.  And for a split second, I looked around from the roller coaster’s peak and thought: huh, so this is the view from here?  And then my life— so much time spent waiting, longing, click, click, clicking— fell out from under me.

Suddenly I was in it.  A wild ride.  Baby to babies.  Vanishing sleep, disappearing youthfulness.  Competing priorities.  Trying to hold close what matters most, while simultaneously flying through life.  Years feeling like months, months feeling more and more like just days, and days feeling like dreams.  And I expect it to slow down just as abruptly– maybe as an empty nester in fifteen years– leaving me to wonder, “what the hell just happened?”

My current life stage often feels a lot like damage-control.  Clutching my bag and keeping my sunglasses from flying out of the ride.  Cluttered cabinets, a messy garage, desperate landscaping, dirty dishes, endless laundry, so many toys, and a cup that runneth over.  Oh how it runneth.

From “when am I gonna get there?” to “was that it?” in the blink of an eye.  

But Ecclesiastes chapter 3 assures us: “God has made everything beautiful in its time.”  Everything. Beautiful. In its time.

The word “beautiful” here is the Hebrew word YAPAH, a craftsfman’s term for carefully and precisely fitting different pieces of material together, like placing a jewel perfectly in its setting, to create a feeling of intense pleasure and satisfaction.  So this verse means, “He has made everything to fit precisely together to create a sense of intense pleasure and satisfaction in its time.”  Everything.  Beautiful.  In its time. 

This messy, overflowing cup— year thirty-seven— with its stretch marks, and tiredness, and new gray hairs, and noise— is entirely, precisely, fit and crafted for beauty in its time.

If I trust Him and His words, then the question “Why is it this way?” is answered.  Each life stage, to give pleasure and satisfaction, as is.  

The question then becomes “Can I see it His way?” 

That verse continues, “He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end.”  A sense of eternity in my heart, but an inability to see the whole big, beautiful Story. He built into it a mystery.  He purposed the questions.  And He requires that we trust Him.  That we rest in the assurance that there is a bigger Story, and it is beautiful from beginning to end, just as it should be, crafted for intense pleasure and satisfaction.

In the book of Philippians Paul, from a prison cell in Rome, wrote:

“I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot.  In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content— whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.”  (4:12)

What a HUGE statement. What a huge accomplishment.

So what is his secret?

Paul writes that the answer is to do it all “through Him who strengthens me.”  (v. 13)

The answer to the great mystery of contentment is to do it all through Him.    The good and the bad, the ordered and the chaotic, the too much and the too little, the “I’m not there yet,” and the “where did the time go?” Not just for Him, but through Him.

We read throughout the book that Paul was entirely resolved to do God’s will, not caring whether he lived or died, whether he kept serving or went on to be with Jesus, whether he was appreciated or not, whether he was in or out of jail. Completely committed to bring Jesus glory. Indeed, he had figured out how to trust the Storyteller.

Which takes me back to the Hebrew definition of “beautiful.”  That intense pleasure, and that deep satisfaction.

It doesn’t belong to the thing. It belongs to the Craftsman.  The One who sets the jewel.  The One who fashions the piece.  The One who writes the Story.  It isn’t about our contentment, it’s about His. It isn’t about my great pleasure, but His.

This is the great paradox, the wheel within the wheel.  The profound irony of Paul’s secret is that his personal contentment— the eternal kind that he knew how to have in all times, in all circumstances, in all places— was found on the other side of laying his contentment down.  Losing his life for Jesus, only to find it again. Humbling himself, only to be exalted. Letting go of what he expected it to look like, so God could do what He pleased.

As David writes in Psalms 119:

“My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to Your word…

Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways…

This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me…

Your hands made me and fashioned me…

in faithfulness You have afflicted me…

Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations; You established the earth, and it stands firm. They stand today in accordance with Your judgments, for all things are Your servants.”

In affliction, His. In the dust, His. Despite our vanity, His. Whichever generation, at whichever point in the Story, His. The Author. Because He said so. His very word causing all to stand. His is the first word, and the last.

His Story takes the chapter in which we find ourselves– however messy, however seemingly fragile, unfair, poorly timed, or poorly measured– and says, regardless of what we see in it: “Everything beautiful in its time.” At age 17, and 37, and 87.

So, in the words of Paul Simon, “Who am I to blow against the wind?”

I can cling to my version of it, wallow in how it feels, in how I’d change it and make this season more like that one, or how I’d take from here to give to there. Or, I can cry out, “Turn my eyes from looking at vanity,” and revive myself according to His word. A word that declares it is — all of it– beautiful, in its time.

And be content.