restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
Our Times Are in His Hand
A thought occurred to me this evening having just visited my Favorites on the Worldwide Web. Too many folks (myself included at times) tend to see all people (and issues, for that matter) as either utterly good or utterly bad and leave no room in their thinking for that great mass of mortals who are so mixed that they dont stand out as remarkably good or entirely bad. Such perfectionists demand too much of others. They easily become impatient and sink into despair because they find few people who can attain the high mark theyve set for their fellow travelers.
The true perfectionist (and we should all be perfectionists in the biblical sense of Philippians 3:7-11) knows he is not perfect nor is anyone else, but perfection is his goal and he moves forward toward it. No, we are not tolerant of the evil that can and ought to be dealt with, but we must be patient with ourselves and others.
The Psalmist wrote, My times are in Thy hand (Psalm 31:15). Please note: The times are ours, but the hand is His. All times are in the hand of the Timeless One, with whom a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.
In these troubling days of wars and rumors of wars, remember that with our Father nothing ever gets out of [His] hand. Truth may seem to be forever veiled, wrong forever on the throne, but this is only one chapter in the book. EverythingI repeat, everythingis in Gods hand, including the future of our nation.
After the first nomination of William Jennings Bryan for the presidency, someone asked the disapproving Senator Hill, Are you still a Democrat? Yes, he replied, and added after a significant pause, Very still. Would it not behoove those of us who write and edit and work and plead to study to be quiet (1 Thess 4:11), waiting quietly upon the God of the Ages in prayer, listening to hear what He might have to say to us? When He finally speaks, what He says will have gathered importance from the long silence preceding it. Nowadays, with all of our neocon, paleo-libertarian, conservative, etc. websites to read and ponder, we sometimes enjoy a feast of words and a famine of ideas, and we will honor Godand do our generation a mighty big favorby indulging only in a few fitly spoken, prayerfully considered words.
February 6, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.