The Marks of Time
As we age, we bear the marks of time and choice.
Time has no conceptual matter that we know of, and yet its effects press down on us like gravity does the earth. Choice is that power born to every human, whereby all men stand as equals. In every situation, we can make a choice. Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor who wrote the book, The Meaning Of Life, said this about choice:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
No one of us escapes the markings of time and choice. And so I’ve chosen to reflect on this thought for a bit.
Time has scientific definitions that are mathematical and elaborate. And while they are relevant and useful, it is not necessary, for the purpose of this discussion, to focus on these definitions. From a spiritual perspective however, time is a gift we cherish or a burden we bear. It is where the story of our lives take place. Time is the places we’ve been. For seldom in our memories do we recollect a time without the place. Time is consistently and predictably impersonal, and yet we each bear its marks in a most personal way.
At some point in the years of our lives, the landscape changes. What was once a life ahead of us and the hope of things we mean to achieve becomes a lifetime of things accomplished and pictures of memories made. Time acquaints us all with the same types of feelings; heartache and hopes; disappointments and dreams, love and sorrow and those moments forgotten. And yet somehow the story for one is never the same as the story for another is it. And as uniquely individual to us are our fingerprints, so are the times and stories of our lives.
One thing worth pondering is that somehow the ending, for each person, never seems to be as glorious as does the beginning. Youth is packaged in promise and vigor while the old is wrapped in wrinkles and rest.
But is there something that we are missing perhaps? A glorious beauty, reserved only for those marked by time that rivals the beauty of those too young to bear any marks at all? Surprisingly, the answer is, conditionally, yes, depending on the marked one and his or her relationship to those marks they bear. For not all persons have chosen to make peace with time or the circumstances that have shaped the story of their lives.
And the distinction between those who have made peace and those who have not, is clear. But do we know why? Why one is very clearly at peace with their own story and another is clearly bitter, resentful, and angry. I believe one simple word can describe the difference.
TRUST.
Where we put our trust makes all the difference in who we become, and how we are shaped by time. We generally decide that someone is trustworthy by how reliably we can count on their intentions towards us, and to what degree our ultimate good matters to them.
For some, God is not at all trustworthy, for they have experience much suffering and pain. God has made clear in His word that we can expect suffering to be a part of the human experience, both for the just and the unjust. Despite His God-ness, which enables Him to do all things, He often times does not make for us a way around it, knowing, as He says to us in Romans 5, “…that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…”
I admit, It is not natural to understand this about God. It requires our trust. It wasn’t easy for the apostle Paul, for he said, “I have learned what it is to be in need, and what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Learning requires the experience of conscious action and the practice of something.
So what makes God trustworthy?
Well, what we know about God through the scriptures, is that although He uses suffering to produce in us endurance, character, and hope… He doesn’t expect any less of Himself. And Jesus, God made flesh, too, knowing it was His Father’s will that He face the painful crucifixion, struggled to trust his Father, sweating great drops of blood and wrestling with how it could be possible to trust in His goodness in light of what He was being asked to endure. …”even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things He suffered.” Hebrews 5:8
It is not clear why suffering is sometimes God’s way and will, but I can feel more confident to trust in a Creator who is willing to subject Himself to the same horrors of evil and pain as are presented to us.
Job, being a godly, upright man, benevolent to the poor, fair in business, and highly respected, believed that God rewarded and preserved from suffering those whose way was blameless. And Job, confused that the righteous were permitted to suffer, as he was, questioned God’s righteous responsibility towards those He loves and made.
But through suffering and Divine visitation, Job came to understand God’s unique qualifications to determine what is right to do towards us. He put it to Job like this: “Have you ever in your days commanded the morning light?” (38:12). “Do you know, where does light live, or where does darkness reside?” (38:19). “Can you lead out a constellation in its season?”
(38:4) “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you possess the understanding of these things!
(38:5) Who set its measurements—if you know— or who stretched a measuring line across it? (38:8) “Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth, coming out of the womb.”
We can’t trust God if we don’t recognize His superior qualifications. A standard has merit, only if by its superior qualifications, all other things can be judged. If I believe I’m qualified to judge God’s actions towards me, then I have determined that my own wisdom is the superior standard by which God’s actions should be judged. I clearly don’t recognize that His wisdom is superior, or accept the truth about myself or God.
God never tells Job why he permitted the hardship, but He does help Job realize how little he could possibly understand about how to judge what is right or wrong of God to do toward us. And finally Job admits to God, “I had heard about you with my own ears, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.” Job 42:5
Aside from his wealth, cattle, family, and health, what did Job gain from this horrifying experience? Job recognized that God’s superior wisdom set Him apart from all other standard bearers. And that God, as Creator, was uniquely qualified to determine what suffering was right for him. Job through suffering recognized the superior wisdom and nature of God to make this determination.
The thing about life is we don’t get to decide what God wills for us, but we do get to decide what our relationship to His will is going to be. The only way to trust that His actions towards us are righteous is to recognize that there is no other standard, superior to His wisdom, capable of measuring righteousness. If we believe Him to be any less God or less qualified to be God, we will always be suspect of His good honor, righteous judgements and good intentions towards us.
It is not ours to decide to exist, or not to exist. It is however ours to decide what sort of relationship with our Maker best serves our own ultimate end. And so that our “being” does not feel like a burdensome imposition, God designed and wired us to feel alive and fulfilled in the ongoing fellowship of His presence.
God is Maker. God is maker of heaven and earth and all that is. Trust Him or not, He is our Maker. Now the good thing is, He promised that all things in our suffering work out in the end for our good. He promised us that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. That suffering endures but for a season and joy eventually comes in the morning. In the end, despite the markings of time and circumstances that seem to stretch us to our limits and test us until we would seemingly collapse beneath the weight of life, God is ultimately working for us and in us and making something beautiful.
Just ask Jesus, who, for the joy of the promise set before Him, endured the cross, the suffering, and the shame. Because He trusted that His Father had His ultimate good in mind. He chose to trust the heart and the will of his father. And now??? He sits at God’s right hand in power and glory. The suffering is over, and the reward is now and forever His.
I submit to you that God is trustworthy.
What sort of relationship do you have with time and those days of suffering God has permitted you to face? When you look back over it all and recall the difficult moments? Perhaps you lost a husband or a son or daughter, and you’ve decided that God can’t be trusted. Perhaps you faced disappointment, sickness, divorce, betrayal, or some other kind of painful circumstance, and you no longer trust God because you don’t trust that He has your ultimate good in mind.
God made the earth a plentiful resource of provision for His creation. Our planet is positioned in space just the perfect nearness to the sun to keep temperatures sustainably warm, but no so far away that we freeze. He designed ecological systems to symbiotically work together. Our cellular structure is made up of complex functions that carry nutrients to various organs, breaking down glucose molecules to create the energy we need to move, breathe and live. He also sends the rain, the storms, the darkness and the seeming “bad” things. Our bodies can break down, are capable of becoming injured and bruised. We can experience great discomfort and pain, of such things, even Christ was not immune.
God has made life, and all of creation lovely and whole. In the garden of Eden, our Father withheld nothing from us, not even the power to choose our way over His. As love demands choice, God gave us the right and power to be free of His input altogether. But just as plants, uprooted and left unplanted die, we too die when do not plant our trust in Him.
Mankind mismanaged this great power of choice. And by ultimately deciding that God’s instructions were not trustworthy, we ingested the seed of disobedience and made ourselves subject to death, and decay as a result. We became, as it were, cut off from the vine. We invited suffering into our world.
Adam and Eve quickly learned that humankind does not possess SELF sustaining capabilities. Just as the plant needs the sun to generate energy necessary for its life, our soul is a dependent vessel, reliant on its Creator.
There is only one self sustaining Power and Person that exists. He is God. He is qualified to be God in every way. He is qualified and entitled to determine what is right for His creation; In other words, He knows why He made you, how to provide for you, what suffering ULTIMATELY benefits you, what promises he means for you to inherit, how to make you useful and grow, and how to fulfill the deepest part of you.
Without choice, we would be nothing more than God’s robots, but as free agents of choice, WE are provided the way to fill our own cup. As long as WE keep the cord connected, we are promised nourishment and the fulfilling joy and peace of God’s presence in times of sorrow and hardship or other times of comfort and rest.
As soon as WE choose to disconnect the cord, we are like withering vines, void of the life giving spiritual nutrients that feed our joy. Discontentment and unfulfillment always accompanies an untethered soul. Out of anger, we often times disconnect the chord of relationship with God. Refusing to be shaped by suffering into a more beautiful person, we only inflict ourselves with a more painful bitterness.
The Maker IS the Knower, IS the loving Father, who cares about His own creation. Because this IS true, then He deserves to be trusted. If you can believe His promises, then you can surely trust that your suffering is not lost on Him.
I urge you to make peace with God today, and give Him the trust He deserves. Make peace with your suffering and sorrow, and recognize the reward He means for you to obtain by it. Thank Him for the scars, for they are your testimony, and what makes you resilient and uniquely useful and special, and beautifully like Christ.
Tell Him that you, like Job, trust His qualifications to judge what is right to do where you’re concerned, even the suffering; that you respect His wisdom and His position, and that you trust Him to lead you into His promised goodness. Acknowledge that because He is uniquely God and Maker, His will concerning you is always right and always ultimately good.
And finally, thank Him for being with you through it all, for giving you the strength, the peace, and the power to trust His purpose and His love.
