God’s Time, Not Ours

Meditations for Ragamuffins

April 1, 2024

God’s Time, Not Ours

 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations 3:25-26

Do you remember the passage in the Gospel of John when Nicodemus came in the dark of the night to meet with Jesus? In their conversation, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3). Being born again is a reference to our conversion experience, the moment when we accept Jesus by faith, and are born into the Kingdom of God. However, it is not a once-only experience. In my journey seeking the life in Christ as my way of life, I have been born again, and again, and again, and again. This is not a matter of losing my salvation and having to start over; it is a matter of going deeper in the spirit with Jesus. It is this going deeper with Christ that Jeremiah is referring to in the passage from Lamentations above.

The Apostle Paul paints a beautiful picture when he says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is certainly true, but the old life is not gone in an instant and immediately replaced with the new person. Transformation is in karios, God’s time, not ours.

God’s loves us as individuals and works with all our brokenness we bring to His table. I am hesitant to put forth a universal rule for how transformation is worked out in our lives, but I am convinced it does take time, a lot of time. By some estimates, many years passed after Saul’s Damascus Road experience and the re-commissioned Paul emerges in the New Testament church.

My Takeaway: It has also been my experience that the transformation of my brokenness into a new person in Christ follows my first accepting, and loving my brokenness with the same tenderness with which God loved me, and Christ died for me, while I was a sinner. Maybe that is why it takes so long. It is one thing for the father to wrap his loving arms around his long-lost prodigal son, who stunk to high heaven; it is another thing for me to wrap loving arms around myself.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2024 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.