In the “hurry up” world life style many of us live, it seems more and more often, fewer and fewer take the time to comfort, help, or even think about the state of things in life. “I’m late, I’m late for A very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late” There’s a great song by Mercy Me, called “Take the Time”, and some of the lyrics go,
“I’m the hungry and the weak
Can you even see me
I’m the stranger all alone
Won’t you welcome me home
I’m the naked and ashamed
Won’t you look my way,
Do it to the least of these
Do it to Me
You gotta take the time
You gotta take the time”
Matthew 25:40 “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast of cool jazz and contemplative conversation. Who knows about tomorrow but God, except this evening, it seems, the world has come to a rest, to a pause to ponder the day, at least on my end of the world, today, for the moment. i hope you have found rest for your body, mind, and spirit. Let’s remember where our true rest comes from. Peace and rest are abundant to those in Christ, and in the cool of the evening i find myself just wanting to camp out and stay. i doubt it’s the place, but if it were, well, that’s just not the way life is, is it? There are truly places in the earth which are peaceful, but the real peace abides with God alone. Life continues with families, friends, work, devotions. But in the midst of difficult and trying days, there can be a rest we all desperately need. Truely, i believe many are just bone weary. Tired of wrestling with themselves and other people. A man says to me the other day while looking out from under weary eyes, “i’m just tired”. Mind you though, he and his wife have been on the mission field for 30+ years so no wonder he’s tired.
Once again, thanks for joining me. Lend me your ears a short time, relax and breath. Take the time to enjoy a time of peace, if you don’t make it a point to “take the time”, it could easily pass you by.
There is an interesting idea presented in scripture which isn’t easily seen, and that is the value of someone who goes out of their way for others, or goes out of their way to accomplish something God has given for them to do. Romans 14:19, “Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.” The word “pursue” there is a present, active verb, meaning the time is now, and we are the ones doing the action. Get it? Do it now, pursue that which makes peace.
Taking the time to reach beyond ourselves is a purposeful thing, we have to purpose to take or make that time.
John 13:3-5, “ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God,
rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.”
i like something i heard recently saying, It’s not enough to simply be “On the path”, we must move our feet forward on “The Path”. If we don’t take the time, and quite often make time, for life to happen, the sun will rise and fall, the days will come and go, days will go by and life will seem to become more and more narrow with the feeling of being stuck in ever decreasing concentric circles.
Many times i’ve set in conventional church meetings when someone brought out a pan of water and towel and there was a “foot washing” ceremony. Someone would sit in a chair, remove their shoes and socks, and another person would kneel in front of them and wash their feet while others prayed or sang. It is a beautiful thing of humility, but let me suggest, though beautiful, it is looking at what Jesus did through a small peep hole with a limited view of the rest of what is going on, for what Jesus did suggests something much, much larger.
Today, a woman came over and weeded our front flower garden. She labored for four hours and then said she couldn’t get to it all today and that she would be back to finish. She said she didn’t want to be “company” but wanted to accomplish her intentions of weeding. She labored in the sun on behalf of someone besides herself, she gave her time and effort with focused intent. Friends, that was foot washing, metaphorically, she took the time to wash her neighbors feet. Had she not taken the time, it would still be a weedy mess which my uncooperative hands would not allow me to do. Again, that’s foot washing in a larger sense.
My wife just had surgery. A couple days later, friend’s brought over evening meals. That’s foot washing. That is taking the time to serve someone beyond ourselves. If we don’t make the time to exercise the Love of God in our hearts, how will the world see our love.
Take the opportunity to listen to your spouse, children, friends, and neighbors, you’ll be surprised at what you’ll hear. i’ve found if you give people just a little of your time, taking the time to listen, they’ll tell you much of their lives. Take the time to listen. Most people really do have something to say, if we’ll take the time to engage and hear them. God places high value on listening, and He also calls to us to be careful what and who we listen to, as in be discerning. We listen to God, to wise counsel and others as a mark of wisdom, humility, spiritual maturity, and healthy relationships.
James 1:19, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” This scripture links listening with self-control, one of the Fruits of the Spirit. Being quick to listen means prioritizing understanding over reacting or asserting our own view. Proverbs 18:13, “if one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”
i believe, by far and large, an incredible amount of people feel isolated and alone, as if to say, they feel no one is taking the time to hear them. True or not, it’s how many feel. Don’t believe that? Do you think i’m being negative? Consider then to take the time to go talk to people for yourself, make small talk, give them a chance to tell their story and you too will begin to hear past the introductory talk and general congenial greetings. Take the time to hear the people around you.
Consider the words of our mouths, ponder to a conclusion the conversations we’ve heard or been involved in; considering carefully what we, ourselves, mean in our communications with others, as in what was our true intent. There’s a good one, “Ponder to a place of resolve”. It simply takes time. Let me encourage us all, take the time, the clock is ticking and if we don’t “take the time”, the clock ticks on and many times, the moment is past.
Listening is foundational to relationship with God, after all, faith itself “comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God.” Romans 10:17. And one more point about listening, i believe listening must lead to actin. Merely hearing without doing is incomplete. See James 1:22. God listens to us and we must reflect His character when we listen well to others.
So often i hear people say they don’t have time to do even the simplest things. i’ve wondered why some people don’t do the simplest things like reply to a text message or email. When asked, they say, i’m just so busy i don’t have time. One fellow said his family was a mess. His kids were being difficult to get along with, his wife seemed to grow more listless by the day. i asked him what he wanted and he said, “i just want some peace.” i asked him if he read his Bible or went to church. His reply? “i’m just too busy. We do soccer 5 days a week and then band practice on the weekend, not to mention work, and the kids with homework.” Well, that was only half the story. i decided to be a little aggressive and asked, “Did you go on vacation last year?” He said, “Oh yea! We went to Hawaii for two weeks last year! It was fabulous!” i asked from another angle, “Do you and your wife ever see any of your friends?” He said, “Oh absolutely! i play poker once a week with the guys, and my wife catches lunch with her girlfriends. It’s always a great time.” i bet you can see where this is going, right? So i asked, “If you have time for those other things, do you think it’s more about what you think is important? If it’s more important to play cards, eat lunch, and do kids activities than it is to spend time with God and your Bible, or even go to church, how do you expect to get any peace if peace only comes from one Person in the universe? If you’re too busy, remember, you’re the one who said yes to being busy. If you’re so busy you can’t answer a simple text or email, would you agree that it’s not really that your too busy but more that you’re choosing to not reply or not participate?” He was suddenly pleasant but distant, and i could tell the conversation was over. If we don’t take the time, it’s just not going to happen. God will do all He can do, but we must choose to participate, and that is choose to fully participate, and not from a distance either.
Rest. i mean really let yourself rest. Sit down, don’t do anything, don’t plan anything, don’t allow your mind to wander down the production-oriented path of “git ‘er done”. Many times we are sitting still, true, but in our minds we’re still doing, doing, doing, and not really resting. No one can rest for you, and certainly, no one but you can enter into the rest God has for you. Take the time to rest. If you don’t take the time to step into the place God has for you, it’s simply not going to happen and perspective easily gets lost.
Have you ever watched the flight path of a butterfly? It seems completely insane. But let me suggest, take the time to watch and consider that maybe much of our own life’s flight path isn’t all that different. It seems to me our lives, looking down from a 5000 ft view, are characteristically erratic, with flutters, loops, pauses, and constant changes in direction rather than flying in a, what we wish would be, a clean, measurable, predictably purposeful direction. The butterfly seems to zig and zag with reckless abandon, but amazingly it seems to find all the flowers it needs to find. Is it really so different? Is it really all as crazy as it looks? If God doesn’t open our eyes and we don’t take the time to watch, we’ll never see it. You’ve gotta “be there” to see. Besides, we all rarely move in straight lines anyway, if you think about it.
Take the time to observe. If we don’t do it, it’s simply not going to happen. Many years ago, i farmed for a living. One day, rather than immediately getting to the tasks of the day, i decided to just walk the rows and fields to look and see what i saw; observing the manner of things, observing how the work of my hand was prospering, or not. While standing up on a high hill near the edge of a hardwood forest overlooking the fields and all that God had given me, for some reason i turned my head to look into the woods. From deep within the woods i saw something large flying through the trees, twisting and turning, even spinning once in a spectacular barrel roll through the thick boughs of the trees. As it got closer i saw it was a large red-tailed hawk moving with such silent fluid skill i couldn’t help but stare, slack jawed. As it cleared the edge of the woods, the tip of it’s wings swished inches from the end of my nose; i looked square into the eyes of this incredible bird of prey as it looked back at me. Seconds later it was gone across the fields. i thought, how totally rare that was and i got to be here to see. If I hadn’t slowed to walk and simply observe—
if I hadn’t stood still in that one precise spot,
at that exact hour, on that particular morning—
if hurry had stolen the quiet from me,
I never would have witnessed the miracle of God’s creation. If we’re not willing to take the time to be there, feet moving on the path, the clock will tick on and life will click past us, one second at a time.
Jeremiah 15:15, “O LORD, You know; Remember me and visit me, And take vengeance for me on my persecutors. In Your enduring patience, do not take me away. Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke.”
In his great discomfort, Jeremiah is calling to God to take the time, to come aside and visit with him. For us, let us take the time to go aside with God and be healed. All wounded things must go aside with God to be healed, they must take the time to sit with the Lord, visit and be visited. Oh, and that time alone with God, it isn’t punishment or exile while we are being healed, it is alone time with God, and that’s the best time above all best times.
The Lord, in His tender compassion, shares His wisdom with us—
a sheer mercy, pure and unearned, just to keep humankind breathing.
If God hadn’t poured out that wisdom, hadn’t taken the time to intercede, intervene, interpose… we’d have killed ourselves off a long ago without any help from anyone else, sure as the sun sinks, every day since the beginning, over the vast land mass of the earth. He doesn’t owe nobody anything. Not a debt, not a duty. No one has any leverage with the King of the Universe. He gives because He’s generous and it’s kindness in it’s purest form, and we best see it for what it is. Now think on this: Why would He share His deep, everlasting wisdom with us if we aren’t willing to step aside, sit down with Him, and just be still? He leans in close and says, “Come now, sit a while with Me.” Take the time.
If any of us have fallen into the snare of the enemy and we are possibly in a leadership position of some sort, if we have fallen down and been bruised by wrong choices, ours or others, or even by sin, sit yourself down and be healed from the contusions of your heart. Not sitting down because we are bad, but sitting down, removing ourselves from our duties of leadership because we need time to heal. Take the time to be healed, trust me, you’ll be better for it and so will the people God has asked you to invest in.
Consider this also: In 2 Samuel 7:18 it says, “David sat”, and, in general, the phrase “sat down” is used 45 times approximately. David stopped what he was doing and sat down. He got himself out of the driver’s seat, and deliberately and reverently placed himself before God. For us it is “strategic not doing”, and it is a far cry from passivity or slothful resignation. As David “sat down” before God, he prayed. 2 Samuel 7:18-29. We say, “don’t just sit there do something”, but more often than we suppose, God says, “don’t just do something, sit there.” Let us pray, not that official thing we do, but the casual conversation, that every day, walk around conversation with God like we’re friends walking together, belonging, connecting, and practicing being good friends with God.
Maybe the only true failure is when we fail to become who God has envisioned us to be. Other than that failure is just the slip and slide of human behavior. God doesn’t have a problem with people who fail, but He DOES have a problem with people who fail to try. Don’t wait until you’re failing at everything to take a moment and do like David, “sit down”.
Take the time to be still and position yourself before the Lord. Read carefully and listen carefully. Take the time to dream, believe, and imagine. Learn to ask good questions, and to get wisdom to know when you’ve gotten a good answer. Do more than just be “on the path”, move your feet forward on the path. Think about it.
The date is today and the time is now. i have two watches i wear, one is a Chronos time piece and it ticks away in physical time. The other is a Kairos time piece, God time, and it always says the time is NOW. Now, take the time to listen for God. Now, be responsible for your actions. Now, take the time to remember, feel, laugh or cry. Chances are if you don’t take the time, things simply won’t happen. Tend your garden and make it beautiful, pursue an honest inventory and do something about it. There are many windows of opportunity along our path if we’ll lift our heads and enter into them.
i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts, a fine establishment in the crook of the river, at the end of Old Field Road. i’m Social Porter and this program has been brought to you by Living In His Name Ministries, Jaan Ojala, Ed Zangerle at Zangerle’s Farrier service, Kevin, Perry and Tommy of the Mebane Freedom League, ClassyKeys Computer services, Area 22 Guitars, and Jeff and Karen of Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something good in the oven.
As you go your way this week, remember that it’s not enough to just be on the path, you must move your feet. If we’re not willing to take the time to be there, feet moving on the path, the clock will tick on and life will click past us, one second at a time, and the moments will be gone if we don’t take the opportunity to be engaged with God and life.
Be strong and courageous, until we meet again.