Assignment: Just the Right Time

I recently took another Lay Servant class for my church. To say I was hesitant is an understatement. I really didn't want to do this, but I also, if God called me to do more, didn't want to have to start over with the basic class. As readers of this blog might recall I wrote a rather good blog about it way back over here. So you can see why I didn't want to do this again. But this class is better. We aren't here to talk about how great we are, but to find ways to better share how great God is with everyone. So now I have to write. Which is good because I enjoy writing. It helps me focus, and even if it isn't about God directly, somehow I always feel at peace with my walk with God. I did the class to better help me form my blogs and don't have any real intentions to speak in front of people. But you never know what might happen. 

I was given an assignment to look at some verses in the Bible and pick one to talk about. Initially I had picked a bit from Luke, because I am rather poor with my money management, and find myself often working for money rather than working for God. But on rereading them, I felt that 1 Timothy 2: 1-7 needed some of my... odd insights. 

When we look at the bible and the time frame of it all, we find that for the Jews, it was about 4000 years from the time Adam was created, to the time Jesus was executed. That is a pretty long time and a lot of things happened between the two points. One of the biggest things that happened which was big enough to change the course of history, and happened many times, was the rise and fall of many great nations. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Israel, bringing us to the rise of the Roman Empire. When Jesus was alive Rome was still in their prime. They were growing, they ruled much of the world. Judea was a small corner of a vast empire that spread from the north coast of Africa up through Spain, Belgium, England back across to the Black Sea which is between Turkey and Russia. In short the Roman Empire was 1,699,000 miles squared. To get another view of that, that is about 45% the size of the United States. And they did all that without the use of cars and phones, but with horses, boats, a lot of running.

That is a pretty big place for the technology that they had. And that technology is what made them great. They built giant aqueducts that are still standing, roads that you can still walk on, buildings that are still magnificent to behold despite us being able to build 1000 feet upward. In fact, I think we can thank the Roman Empire for their hard work at making the "civilized world" a safe place to travel. The well guarded roads and frequent villages along them made it possible for Christianity to spread out to the world.

1 Timothy 2:6 (NLT): He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.

Think about it, if Rome didn't have the roads for safe travel, it is likely that this new religion might have fizzled out in that remote corner of the Empire. It worked well because this was God's time. It is hard for us to do things on God's time because we have so little of it to begin with. What is 100 years when God has been working for 4000 years for just the right time to send his son to bring salvation to the world.

For sure, God could have done this faster, he could have created the stuff himself, he could have done anything faster and better, but what good would it have been and how would God have been glorified if he did it all. We are the hands, the feet, the mouth. Man is how he interacts with Earth. He let us go on with our lives as if he didn't exist all the while still using us to his ends. Not everything that happens in the world is God's will, but he can use it anyways.

If I say no to preaching, he will get the message heard one way or another, by someone else if the need be. Yet I resist and I fight because I do not want to be the center of attention. I do not want people looking at me, dissecting everything that I say. I don't want the lime light. I want to sit back and stay in the shadows, or behind a computer screen. I am safe. I do not want uncertainty.

Yet God is still working. It has been over 6000 years since Adam and the start of God's plan for salvation. What is 6000 years compared to an eternity. God is working through us, and if we listen we might even be able to speed things up. Who knows? Maybe God needs someone to share an inspiring message that sparks an idea that sets someone off to gather a team who design a way of broadcasting the internet for everyone across the globe for free. Maybe that someone is here, or reading this.

Facebook is already working on this with drones. They are working on drones that will use solar power to stay flying and bringing wifi to people who didn't have a way to use it before. Google frequently pushes technology forward so that the price will drop and availability will improve. The old hymn "It Is Well" has a line "Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll." It is a sentiment that we all use, frankly, who doesn't want Christ to come back and finish his plan so that we can spend all of eternity with God. If you want the Lord to "haste the day," your best way is support the advancement of technology so that one day every person in the world will be able to see at the same time the coming Glory.

God is using our creations for his will. Much like God will use the bad stuff in our lives to show his power and love, God might use our technology even if the ones creating it do not believe in him. He can use anything to fulfill his plan because he knows what is going to happen and when. God had this plan long before we were here. Sometimes it takes longer for us to reach the next milestone because of our lack of willingness, but we will reach it nonetheless.

I feel that God will continue to work using man to build everything He needs at just the right time. To make sure that when Jesus comes back every person everywhere can hear exactly what is going on. The Bible says that every creature in heaven, on the earth, under the earth, and in the seas will cry out and sing songs to the Lord. Because the time was just right.