Teague Bible Church

Time And Faith
You have probably experienced recurring dreams. Some are meaningful, and some are the result of eating pizza too late in the evening.
Don’t act on any dream, or even strong emotions, certainly don’t act quickly on such a basis, but pass all things under the Word of God and prayer first, before acting on impressions you receive. Well, see what you did? You got me off my point and I was not even there yet!
Some dreams are from God and the ones I have, the recurring ones, usually are not giving me insight into making a decision about a pressing matter, as much as they are about an attitude to hold about my daily walk. Of course , when stressed, we dream of not getting to work on time, or to a class on time, or being half-dressed for something. Those we figure out pretty quickly.
This recurring one for me was pretty simple. I am in a long, narrow hallway about 50 yards long. I hear a lion at the end of the hallway, yet I cannot see him because he is obscured in fog. I see a doorway, halfway down, on the left. I can hear the lion’s paws scratching the slick floor for traction as he now knows my presence at the far end of the hallway. He is moving my way at a fantastic speed!
The door open slightly and a man with a strong voice says,” You will need this, come take it now, you have time, not a lot of time, but you have time.” You see the problem. I want to roll up in a ball and just hope I wake up. And I did do that many times. The dream usually ends with the lion’s teeth sinking into my back, and I awake with the covers wound around my head, the alarm clock mixed in there somehow, and one night my toothbrush got in the mix !
Finally, after about a year, I decide to move toward the person at that door, which was my supposed help. That also meant moving toward the lion as he was moving toward me! I made it to the door, and some device was given to me. I pointed it toward the lion and he vanished. Turning back I see that the door is shut. I awake. I have never had that dream again. Once I moved toward that door, and received that device; no more such dream!
I heard an old man say to me once that doing the will of God, perfectly, takes place about 10 minutes after you decide to give up on the will of God. I heard an old Christian song that went,” You can’t hurry God,,, He may not be when you want Him to be,, but He’s always ,,,right on time.” And as a good friend said to me, ” God may be slow but He is never late.” I told my friend he stole that line from that song. With his gift for ad hominem he said I was hard to teach, and no, he did not steal anything. Ha! Ha!, or Lol?
You are thinking,” You got a point here brother?” Yes, I do. If God sees everything from a timeless perspective, then for us to grow we have to trust Him by getting caught up in His perspective. He invented time; He is not subject to it. We trust Him, in time, in different moments, where fear and time seem to have married each other. So, God has to stretch all the time out of the situation until we give up, allowing us to think He does not care, so we quit hoping for something, and start hoping just to have Him near.
I think of Gideon in Judges 6:13 where he concluded that God did not care anymore because of a timing thing. He made a wrong judgment about God based solely on God’s inconvenient timing. Or in Mark 4: 38 where the disciples concluded God did not care for them because of a storm that came at a bad time. In either case, God could have acted quicker! Or at the death of Lazarus in John 11. Deliberately delaying His actions. Now come on Lord! Can’t you see this needs to be done in my life,,, right now?
There is a zone, “in” time, where faith is tested “with” time itself. We are timeless, eternal creatures. That is why we are so shocked with the changes that time has brought to our door! What you originally wanted from God gets transformed from a thing, or an ideal situation prayed for, to an incredible love for God, and then, yes, and then, you could care less about the thing or situation anymore!
Ephesians 3: 20a has become one of my favorite verses. ” Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,,,.” Well, how sneaky is that? He actually does things to me I did not ask for! I just want a temporary fix and He acts like I am going to live forever!
I think I know how to make myself happy; you think you know how to make yourself happy. You and I just need God to give it to us! Right? Wrong. We have very little idea how to fulfill our destiny. THE will of God is clear, “To become conformed to the image of Christ.” Romans 8: 28-31. ” If that is not your daily heartbeat there is no hope on the more detailed parts of your journey.
The daily details of completing that journey, that will of God, reminds me of hearing that strong voice in that dream saying,” You will need this, come take it now, you have time, not a lot of time, but you have time.” You need to move if you want to change. That is where faith grows! JWP