Thinking in Bible Time

I am incredibly impatient when I get behind the wheel of a car. And it drives me crazy (no pun intended). I will have no problem killing a little bit of time at home only to get in my car and tailgate someone whom I feel is going too slow. And every time I do it, I feel more and more aware of it. I have to remind myself, "what if that were my mother or my daughter in front of me?" or what if that person stopped and got out and looked me in the eye and asked me "why are you tailgating me?".  How embarrassing that would be! Why am I so impatient? 

We live in a culture of Getting it Now! We expect instantaneous results. In the era of the text message and instantaneous feedback, it is getting tougher and tougher to be patient. And yet, God works on His own timetable. The concept of Bible Time was introduced to me by Pat Morley, the author of many bestselling books including Man in the Mirror. Pat's most recent book focuses on this topic among many of Bible Time and it is called How God Makes Men.  Bible Time is the Lord's timetable. To the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day (2 Peter 3:8).

Another way to think about it, if I live 80 years and a thousand years is one day, my life to God is just under two hours or a medium length movie. So my life to God is a movie! He is seeing the events unfold not as an observer but as the producer and director of my life. My life tomorrow, this week, this month is carrying out a scene to an ultimate drama that God is personally unfolding. Doesn't that make it substantially easier? Just like a movie, things seem to take an unexpected twist. Things happen. The stress of a company, the loss of a loved one. If God is truly the producer and the director of this movie, then He is not unaware. He is there orchestrating the events of my life to His greater glory. I want to be there living the ride, one day at a time.

It is interesting that often I try to force God's hand. I jump ahead of the movie plot. Sometimes it is impatience, sometimes it is lack of faith, sometimes it is lack of perfect knowledge. My prayer is always that God will close the doors of my impatience. I can name countless times that God rescued me from myself. Just like the director and producer would not let the actor create his own plot, God is taking over my life. I am slowly realizing how that works. Bible Time is the first expression of how God thinks of my life.

In the book, Pat describes epic tales of how God makes ordinary men into men for His purposes. One of these is Moses whom God started out as a somebody, turned him into a nobody, and then taught that nobody how to become a somebody. Moses lived 120 years: the first 40 being taught as an Egyptian prince, the second 40 as a Bedouin shepherd with no interaction with people, and the final 40 as a deliverer of the Israelite people. Now if I wrote the script, I would have had him skip the middle 40 years. But God wrote the script and the movie of Moses' life is in Bible Time.

I would have been really happy if God had skipped some painful points of my life, but He didn't. Because Bible Time is the perfect time and God used those times in my life to teach me and prune me so I can be more useful. How that fully unfolds, I have no idea. I just have to be ready and willing one day at a time.

Pat's teaching on this topic is here if you are so inclined.