Is It Time?

“Is it time?” is a powerful question to ask ourselves and others. It is a question that implies a decision at the crossroads of monumental change, that is, “is it time to change, to do or accept something radically different?” To many, it is an expression of desperation.

There are many levels of possible change. For example, at a basic level, is it time to change my hair style. Moving on, is it time to change my attitude. Ratcheting further, is it time to change my job? On the bookend of levels of change is this: is it time for God?

“Is it time for God?” has many aspects. Is it time:

•      For a higher power to enter my life?

•      To surrender my will and be transformed?

•      To trust, believe, and have faith in something beyond myself?

•      To yield the care for someone in body, mind, and spirit?

•      For strength, wisdom, and knowledge beyond my own?

•      For light in darkness, living waters in a dry season?

•      For peace, joy, and serenity?

There are certain things that only God can do, certain holes that only God can fill. This is as it should be. We are finite. God is infinite.

Let us pray. “Yes, Lord, it is time. Do for me (and others) what I cannot do myself.”

What Now?

Having depleted all resources, exhausted all options, having no strength left or inspiration to re-energize, we ask ourselves, “what do we do now?”

We may find ourselves thinking how bleak is our cupboard of choices, how empty the pond of our dreams, how dry the stream of our ideas.

“What now?” is an expression of desperation, cried out to no one in particular. It is a woeful anchor with no holding power against the forces that seem to control our out-of-control lives. Who listens and who is capable of a response?

God listens. Has listened. Continues to listen. But more than merely listening, God has a response that has been available since creation and is ready to be grasped by us now. The response is, “I am, now.” “I am now your strength, your hope, your all. No longer must you depend upon yourself for what you do not have and cannot do alone. Now, trust me to fill your cupboard, to release the living waters of dreams, and fill the living pond of your life.

Where To?

Of the infinite possible directions where we may go when tossed about by life, of the many turns and detours we may take, and of the critical crossroads we may encounter, there is only one that truly matters.

Go to Him for He beckons you, “Come to Me” and “Come and see.” Our “where” is a person, a relationship. It is a destination in the heart, not a physical location.

We go to Christ because he first came to us. He came in love, and it is only through His love that we may experience love and share our own. And what is love other than true, abundant  life?

Go to Him in prayer that you may be fed by Him, healed by Him. There is no balm, no true nourishment elsewhere, for “love must feed on love” (Spurgeon).

How?

There is a terrible felt weight to the emotions of pain, grief, and sorrow. This weight cannot be measured by physical scales for it exists in a different dimension, the dimension of the soul. How, then, to release this weight, to unshackle ourselves of its suffocating, drowning effect?

We release it through surrender. We stop forcing solutions to problems beyond our control. We release the grip on our depleted resources, like batteries drained of energy that we stubbornly hold onto.

We release it to the One whose purpose is to rescue us, who bids us to come to  Him that we might have life: to drink, not from tainted waters, but from living waters.

My prayer is that you take the leap of faith and surrender to the One who loves you. Hand over the net that is holding the pain, grief, sorrow or whatever ails the soul to the One who desires to take it from you. And then feel the release that will buoy you, once again, to the surface of a God-enveloped life.

What Assurances Have We?

John 7:37
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.”
NIV

Revelation 22:17
Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
NIV

Odes of Solomon 30:1-3
Fill ye waters for yourselves from the living fountain, of the Lord, for it is opened to you. And come all ye thirsty and take the draught; and rest by the fountain of the Lord. For fair it is and pure and gives rest to the soul, Much ore pleasant are its waters than honey;
earlychristianwritings.com

Isaiah 55:1
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
NIV