Looking back…….

Time is a funny thing…. it clicks on by, not waiting for us to catch up mentally or emotionally, not waiting for us to be warned, not waiting for us to recover.  Just clicks on by!  And yet to a large degree, in it’s clicking by we begin to heal.  Obviously “time” is something God created for us, for our world system.  It certainly doesn’t ruffle or rattle Him.  I was reading yesterday morning in my read-thru from Genesis about Joseph….. where he’s thrown into prison and then the cup-bearer and baker wind up in there with him.  He interprets their dreams and says…. Gen. 40:14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house.  The passion in that verse takes you into poor Joseph’s heart.  You think about what all this young boy has endured and lived through.  And then you wonder what all went thru his mind over the next TWO YEARS, as you read v.23 Yet the chief cup-bearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him.  TWO YEARS!  Forgotten?  Actually he wasn’t forgotten at all.  That seed was planted, it’s just that it wasn’t time for it to come forth yet. Gen. 41:1 After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile……..  v. 9 The the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “I remember my offenses today…….” then he proceeds to do what Joseph asked him to do 2 years earlier!  And then …. when the timing was right…. suddenly things moved QUICKLY!  v. 14 Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they quickly brought him out of the pit…..   We could ponder and wonder and make assumptions into why God ticked off 2 years from the planting to the reaping of that little encounter, but do we know?  God does!  We could wonder how “the wait” was for Joseph’s heart to be ready.  Or the cup-bearer’s.  Or Pharaoh’s.  We don’t know.  But what I do know, what I have figured out is that God is ALWAYS doing a gazzillion things that I can’t know or even ask for! Ephesians 3:20-21 has become my anchor verse!  “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”  I especially like the KJV of this…. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think…..”  Exceedingly abundantly!  He’s always doing exceedingly abundantly more than we see on the surface.  Thinking about that and knowing that helps me when the ticking of my clock unnerves me with sadness or sorrow.  He’s up to something!!  Always!

And so TODAY…. this day… I begin a journey.  I begin a reflective journey of looking back at what has been, yet all the while looking forward at what’s to come….   The unknown, but the anticipated.  The planned, but who knows.  I think the operative word has to be TRUST.  Yes I plan. Yes I anticipate.  But all the while I trust the Sovereign God who holds my clock.  What an adventure….. awaiting tomorrow.