“For God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you’.” (2 Corinthians 6:2 NLT)
Yeah, I know, it has been that kind of year….The kind where each day can feel like 86,400 breaths that you’re barely catching. And don’t blink because when you look up it’s onto the next thing. The next sound bite. The next snap. The next 140 characters. The next missed call. The next moment reverberates recklessly in your already shattered ears. But who can hear it? When the call resounds within your heart to go, to love, to hold, to serve, to be present now…who can hardly even hear it?
It’s been the kind of year when unprecedented things happened in the celestial heavens, and earth-shattering events shook our souls; when the headlines appeared in your backyard and you knew the names of the victims; you wept, because who can stand to bare much more of this? We all teetered on the fence between sleeping standing up and awakening to our current reality. This is where we must take pause. We get this one wild moment when our two hands swing straight upward and our souls crash together in one solid stroke. When in our darkest hour we have a chance at awakening to a brand new thing, will we not perceive it?
I’m often standing at the kitchen sink in the still of the afternoon. Sun streaks through the tree outside the window. Redheaded finches flutter about the branches gathering winter berries, and I pause. In the distance, a disturbance breaks the silence as sound waves ripple through the atmosphere. A jet cuts through the stratosphere, leaving a stream across the sky. Intrigued, with neck-craning I try to catch a glimpse of the aircraft. By the time I look, the plane has already passed, yet the sound still resonates.
I think about what this means for the reliability of our senses–how we perceive time and space–and how this relates to our faith.
I remember what a pastor once said, “The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.”
The apostle Paul understood this. Paul wrote that now is the time to look up. “Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.”
