(Daughter of Mine), forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Pr. 3
"Length of days AND long life"....this set me to thinking. Which is always either quite dangerous, or tiresome, or on a really good day, heady and exhilarating.
2008 is already more than half gone. And I have not accomplished, yet, some of what I wanted to accomplish by now. I don't want mere long life, I need length of DAYS. It could be a bit of a stretch, but maybe those two Proverbial phrases are not redundant. I've heard it taught that the Holy Spirit in Scripture is never redundant. Maybe "length of days" and "long life" are two separate but related blessings.
The whole world craves length of days. Everyone is in a hurry, seemingly unable to capture time, or use it to their advantage. To most, the days are not "long enough" to fit it all in. That is no small problem, no insignificant pain. Not being blessed with length of days means that worthy goals are left unrealized, because time runs out. It means that important relationships suffer irretrievably because of the rat race.
To the obedient, God promises not just long life, but length of days. Suddenly....we can breathe again. There is time again. He can accomplish this quiet miracle at any season of life, at any age; but the earlier we learn to simply obey Him without question, the more we can accomplish with our newly discovered, extra kairos time. Opportune time. Heck, He can even lengthen chronological, sweep-of-the-minute-and-hour-hand, clock time. He can hold back the sun for a day or a few moments. He can multiply our minutes. He can supernaturally stretch our resources. He can take our best effort, and create "effort squared". (I stole that notion from a dear friend, who plans to "grow old, squared". In other words, not just 7 X 2, but rather 7 X7. Not just old times two, but old times OLD AGAIN. Sassy old. Wise and eccentric old. I decided to join her "old squared" club. We'll grow old-squared together, I guess. Terrifying but hilarious thought, much like I imagine bungee-jumping to be.)
God can give us "effort squared". The outcome of "effort squared" equals far more than twice the amount of the effort. It equals results piled on results. It equals harvest-time, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. We can accomplish in a season the sort of ingathering that it would take others, less obedient to God, a lifetime to gather.
The sweetest part of this promise is not the long life. Or the length of days. To me, the sweetest part is the peace.
3 comments:
That's good - I've been learning this recently... letting go of some things so the Lord can free up time in my life. And that's what it's coming down to, the Gardener pruning the unfruitful parts to make room for the fruitful. And praise the Lord, it's also to give me a little more time.
"...we can breathe again. There is time again"
Yes, and AMEN!
I like the idea of your friends "Old Squared" club. Can I become a charter memeber, too? LOL. I've paid some dues..........................
hehehe
Kim
Consider yourself joined. The only rule: NO red hats. Too over- done.
:-)
Post a Comment