"What Time Is It?" (A Devotional I Wrote)

We live in Time on Earth. Eternity is endless existence. This scripture applies to our life, now:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NIV
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

This is a great Daily Checklist, for our spirit, as far as not only our intent, but our motive. This scripture, like all scripture, can help to keep us on track, and away from causing there to be a train wreck, of our lives, which happens when we live our lives in opposition to God's Word. If I'd simply stopped, and asked myself, "What time is it?", spiritually speaking, especially at key junctures, in my life, I could have avoided alot of the heartache that I have suffered in this life, from my not being properly pensive prior to making important choices, that affected my future. The saddest time to live in is that of it now being 'too late'. The choice is made; the die is cast. It is what it is.

We constantly wrestle with decisions, about what to do, in our lives, at a certain time. Today, I recognized that it was not the time for me to go to the grocery store after hearing the forecast and finding out that tomorrow it will be much less humid and about 10 degrees cooler. Since I walk to the store, about a half hour each way, for a distance of just over 2 1/2 miles, and plan to buy some frozen food items, deciding what time is right, to go, is important to the outcome. In today's heat, and humidity, neither I nor the frozen corn would have been at our very best!

Being aware of our mortality as one verse also speaks of should help us to prioritize what it is that we do each day. Whatever That is that we do with our time today, we are exchanging one day of our lifetime for That! Is whatever That is worth it? Answering the question "What time is it?", using the scripture verses, above, as the guideline, for determining that, helps us to know with more certainty. There's a time to do something and a time to not do something in this life, and no one can really know what time that is, for us, in our pilgrimage on this Earth, except for God, and, sometimes, ourselves. Asking God, about these things, can help us to know. Prayer is important, as well as scripture, and I also, unapologetically, believe in Signs*. I believe God wants to communicate with us about the very life that He has given us to live for His Glory and that He will use a limitless number of an infinite variety of things to help us to know what time it is, in our lives, as far as what we are to do, or not do, and when. We need to seek His wisdom.

These Bible verses really have something to say about any and every situation that we face, if we will just allow them to do their work, in our day-to-day lives, by leading us to wisdom, in our decisions. They cover anything that could possibly be on our TO DO List, of which we wonder, all throughout our lives, usually on a daily basis, if not even moment-to-moment, if the answer to each question, that we face, large or small, is "Yes", "No", or, "Wait". To paraphrase William Shakespeare's soliloquy, by Hamlet, in Hamlet**: 'To Do, or Not To Do; that IS the question!' It is important, to do our best, to do what we should do, and at the right time, to avoid some of the unnecessary heartache from our not doing that, which I can attest to, first hand, because I did not utilize the available assistance, of God's Word, the way that I should have, when I was younger. Now, I won't do a thing without it as I try to mitigate more brokenness in me by doing things God's way to the best of my knowledge. God is not trying to deprive us. God is trying to protect us. Ever since the Fall of Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, we humans have not trusted that this is God's Plan, indeed His very heart, for us. In our making our decisions, then, apart from what He has clearly instructed us to do, as our Creator, we have brought those bad consequences upon ourselves, and others. We cannot blame God for our rebellion, or its pain.

What is it time to do in your life? What is it time that you stop doing in your life? What time is it?

*Some scripture regarding signs:

1 Samuel 10:7
"It shall be when these signs come to you, do for yourself what the occasion requires, for God is with you."

Isaiah 38:7
"This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that He has spoken . . . ."

2 Chronicles 32:24
"In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill; and he prayed to the LORD, and the LORD spoke to him and gave him a sign."

Joshua 24:17
"for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed."

Luke 2:12
"This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

1 Samuel 14:10
"But if they say, 'Come up to us,' then we will go up, for the LORD has given them into our hands; and this shall be the sign to us."

Jeremiah 44:29
"'This will be the sign to you,' declares the LORD, 'that I am going to punish you in this place, so that you may know that My words will surely stand against you for harm.'"

**Speech: “To be, or not to be, that is the question”

By William Shakespeare

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. . . .