For some time there was a sign like this one that parked itself on the road passing my house. Every day as I would turn into my driveway I would read it and think about the delay I have experienced in my life. See, I thought that today would mark six months of me being in Kenya. But God had different plans. I am learning to make the most use of the time, and to keep my eyes open to the ways God is working in the present.
As I write this I am in southern California selling Christmas trees. Not exactly where I imagined I would be, but I have confidence that God knows what He is doing. His timing is perfect. In Ephesians 5:15,16 it says “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” The word for ‘make best use of’ is used in Galatians 3:13 to depict our redemption from the curse. So a more adequate translation might say something like, ‘ sacrificing something in order to buy back time’ or as the Amplified version puts it ‘buying up each opportunity’.
Time is going to pass, regardless of how we treat it. So much of life is spent distracted by distant future hopes or recollections of the good old days. I want to be fully invested in whatever is before me. I have been learning to dig into the richness of the experiences that turn up each day. To scour each day for an opportunity to draw near to Abba and to draw others near to Him.
I will be leaving Oregon sometime late January. Instead of going directly to Nicaragua, I will be headed to North Carolina for a time of cross-cultural/teamwork training. I am ready to be in Nica, but I am looking forward to the ways that God is going to use this delay in writing my story. Stories are made up of delays.
Eventually, the sign outside my house alternated between flashing ‘expect delays’ to ‘project delayed’. I guess it was to be expected.
