It's About Time

Had to get a blog post in this year. Did I make it (...trying to find a clock...)?? Perhaps 2019 will be the year of the blog again. If so, I should probably get a redesign. Though I’m more of a word person, so if my frequency of writing is dependent on that I have little hope.

But what should I write about? Before, when I first started blogging, I would spend hours crafting a post, making sure it was precise and thorough. In retrospect I see my longer posts written in the structure of a chapter in a book. Of course, few people read that much online, so at best it has provided me content for a future book or at least a historical journal. Then, my wife Katie helped me realize to be readable online (or anywhere actually), I need to work harder to have less words. For writers (if I can call myself that), writing less is much harder. Writing a lot of words is very easy and not indicative of a skillful writer. “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge”, says Proverbs. As a result of that exhortation, I do have some more concise and hopefully helpful posts in more recent years.

Now, it has been so long since I’ve posted, I think I need to somehow combine these two approaches and give somewhat of a summary, but in a short and readable way. Here goes.

COURAGE

For the last few years I have defined a “word for the year”. Fortunately, the word has come to me around November for the year ahead, and so it hasn’t been a choice between all the words in the language, but instead an acceptance of the word as presented to me. For example, as 2018 was approaching I had to accept whether I had the courage to accept that my word for the year was courage. One of the major lessons I learned through the year was that courage doesn’t come before it comes during. So, I accepted it, I received it, and I am still learning and accepting and receiving the virtue about which C.S. Lewis said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”

Among other things, I have tried this year to be patient in waiting, cheerful in suffering, and courageous in doing. In March, my wife and I officially started the process of growing our family through domestic adoption, following much waiting and some real suffering. This is the part of the blog post where as I writer I am fighting the temptation to abandon the skill of brevity and commence using words galore. How could I not? I am talking about one of the most surreal and wonderful experiences of my life! Sigh, I shouldn’t.

Approaching adoption, my charge was not necessarily to lay aside my fear and anxiety and put on courage, in the same way that Paul says to put off sin and put on Christ. Instead, my charge was simply to follow Christ by being like him. It was to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. That didn’t mean I was to attempt to muster strength and bravery on my own, but that I was to love and encounter the unknown with virtue, by his grace. And the joy would come alongside, and the blessing would be beyond anything I could imagine. Adoption no matter the experience involves loss, which involves pain. We knew this, so I knew that there would be moments of confusion, sadness, and anxiety, and that I needed courage to get me through. But it would not be a “get through this and it will all be better” moment. It was a “learn a new perspective on endurance and joy” reality, that would apply to every moment to come, good and bad. God was and is so gracious and provided for us so abundantly.

NAOMI

Enter “my joy”. Literally. In August our daughter was born and we brought her home to be part of our forever family. Her name is Naomi Naysa Elliott; Naomi means “my joy” and Naysa means “miracle of God”; and that she certainly is. I mean, look at this precious blessing from the Lord:

I have written before about the power of moments (Florence!), and again now with the beautiful weight of having a child, I am desperate to learn the art of savoring moments, acknowledging that on this side of eternity they are always fleeting. As 2019 approaches, I am attempting to dedicate the time to accept a different word for the year, one that is perhaps harder to explain but is a combination of my 2017 word (focus) and courage. I actually used it in that sentence.

TIME

Time. A focused and courageous humility towards, and honoring of, time. For fellow Marvel fans, you could say I am going to try to channel the powers of Dr. Strange (former wielder of the time infinity stone). No not really. My goal is to understand and utilize time as a mortal, finite, sinful human being, trusting that my approach to it can both glorify God and serve people, even when (especially when!) some of it seems wasted or limited.

Mike Cosper in his book, Recapturing the Wonder, quotes Anne Dillard who said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” Cosper goes on, “Each moment of our days - our meals, our conversations with friends, our escapes, obsessions, romances, and distractions - is what we make of our lives. Our habits and rhythms of life are formative not only of who we are but how we know the world, including whether we know it to be a place where God is present or absent.”

Something like that is what I mean when I say my word for the year is “time”, Or, to quote C.S. Lewis again, “We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.”

True enough, right? Let me use a brief example from the very experience I had putting these words to the screen (a phrase not as cool as saying putting pen to paper, but I digress). I spent one hour attempting to get my new Microsoft Surface Book connected and operational. I will spare you the agonizing technical details, but did you hear what I said? One. Hour. That is 60 minutes of time. You can travel from Indianapolis to Chicago in that time (that’s almost 200 miles of physical space on earth). One hour of time. Time that is not unlimited. Time that has immense value. Time that is a category created by God for the benefit of humans, for what? Not to waste it for sure. So, did I waste that 60 minutes? It seemed like it, but hence my focus for the year on time. No minute is wasted inside the sovereign will of God. May I have the courage to believe that and act on it!

But how? Consider the perspective of A.W. Tozer: “Because God’s nature is infinite, everything that flows out of it is infinite also. We poor human creatures are constantly being frustrated by limitations imposed upon us from without and within. The days of the years of our lives are few, and swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency, we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is simply not time enough to think, to become, to perform what the constitution our natures indicate we are capable of. How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. Eternal years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with him all the riches of limitless time and endless years. God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves. For those out of Christ, time is a devouring beast; before the sons of the new creation time crouches and purrs and licks their hands. The foe of the old human race becomes the friend of the new, and the stars in their courses fight for the man God delights to honor. This we may learn from the divine infinitude.”

There is a time for everything. A time to be born, and time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

I didn’t use quotation marks, but surely you know I didn’t say that (neither did the Byrd’s, originally). But it is my jam for 2019. What time is it? That question, for me at least, will not be answered simply in numbers, and by some otherwise arbitrary accounting for where and when we are in the universe. That question will be answered by a focus and courage and humility to live in the moment, and love and serve and think and act in such a way that might, God willing, bring more hope and more Jesus to bear in our crazy world. Not because of me, and maybe not even seen or realized by me, but coming to bear nonetheless by the grace and sovereignty of Him who created all things, including time itself.