EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN ITS TIME

I have been thinking a lot about time recently. It began with an Instagram video that was shared in the Biziblings + Bizilovers chat. One of the questions posed by the creator started like this:

“If language shapes how we think, then how do African languages shape how we experience time?”

As you might imagine, the comments exploded with thoughts from South Africa, Cameroon, Rwanda, Nigeria, the Gusii community, and so on and so forth. Many described time in relation to harvest or readiness. Some mentioned moon cycles, others declared natural occurrences and seasons as their markers.

As I continued to read about their experiences of time, I began to reflect more heavily on my own. For me, there is the workweek and the weekend, ordinary days and select holidays, birthdays—but only the important ones. And then, at some point, time is dictated and rushed by desire and longing, often decided by social media or the passive-aggressive questions from people that remind you that you are getting too old to be single or childless or still figuring out your career. Still, my perception of time has always pushed me to be somewhere else, to be somebody else; it has caused me to grieve more and fail more, and I think I’m tired of that. Soo..

In true, “I will make everything about Jesus fashion,” I switched the original question around a little and asked God,

“If language shapes how we think, then how can I use biblical language to shape how I experience time?”

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven” EcclesiaSTes 3:1[NIV]

Harvest, readiness, season.

Harvest, readiness, season.

Harvest, readiness, season.

All words that I know. All words that make me think of crops and trees and nature, not people, certainly not me. And then it felt like God was asking me, “Why not?”

Not aloud, but somewhere inside, I responded with the simple fact that I am not a tree. Other than its beauty, I never considered any in-depth connection to one. I tossed my own thoughts around in my mind until I landed on Psalms 1:3 [AMP]:

“And he will be like a tree firmly planted [and fed] by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season. Its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers [and comes to maturity].”

At first glance, the answer to my question was that I can experience time in seasons.

And, if I were to do that, then I would embrace change. I would expect it. I wouldn’t hold onto my leaves in the winter or be burdened by them in the spring; I would yield to the One who has set my seasons. But, according to this scripture, He hasn’t just set the season—He has also picked the fruit assigned to that season. So what I produce and when I produce really isn’t up to me; it isn’t up to time counted by minutes and hours, days, or months.

In one sense, this gifted me this freedom, and in another sense, it left me with a new question: What is up to me?

If God chooses the fruit and the season, what do we choose?

To be firmly planted and fed by streams of water.

A quick answer that felt simple and easy just led to more questions.

How can you be firmly planted? Who dictates the strength and quality and depth of the stream? How do I know I’m planted next to the right stream?

The questions began to pile up again, as they typically do when I ask God anything. I remembered, or He reminded me, that Jesus told us in John 4 that He was the source of living water.

Another quick and simple answer. To be firmly planted, to yield fruit in proper seasons, to prosper in all that I do, is a byproduct of being fed by Jesus, my perfect source of living water.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” ecclesiastes 3:11 [niv]

Psalms 1:3 wasn’t the only scripture that came to mind as I considered time.

There was 1 Corinthians 3:7-9 [NIV]

“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.  The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

Introducing this new idea that time isn’t my business. If I can’t choose when something is planted or watered, and I definitely can’t choose when something grows, then I have to assume those things aren’t my business. And to make them my business is to make myself my own god, and who wants to do something crazy like that?

But before we go down that rabbit hole, the new thing that sticks out in all of this is that, in Scripture, humanity is often compared to something that doesn’t have free will. A field cannot say to a planter, “Don’t plow me like that”, but we are considered God’s field. Clay cannot say to the potter, “Make me into a bowl instead of a plate,” and in Jeremiah, God literally asks Israel if He could treat them like clay. And in the Psalms, the tree cannot say, “Water me more so I can yield fruit a month earlier.”

We have a choice, unlike trees and clay. We have the freedom to plan and decide what we want and when—to say this thing or person is what we deserve and what we should have.

And, I feel like in all my questions about how I should experience time, God is actually teaching me about humility and trust.

This could be a stretch, but there’s a scripture in Philippians that says “[Jesus] Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather He made Himself nothing…”

Now, we don’t have equality with God, but we were created in His image—meaning we too have something to use to our own advantage. Our ability to choose and think, to speak life or death, to be our own field and our own building, is ours to do whatever we want with. Just like Jesus’s equality with God was His to do whatever He wanted with.

But, Jesus didn’t do whatever He wanted, and we are reminded of that each time we see “My hour had not yet come” in the New Testament. Although He could exist in and out of time and He could have destroyed all of humanity and He could have risen from the dead in one day instead of three, He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He existed in the time and season that was set for Him by the Father He fully trusted.

Likewise, although we can create our own path and order our own steps and build our own throne, can we consider our Godly nature something to be sacrificed instead of used?

Can we make ourselves like trees—fully yielding to the plans of the One who has promised to make all things beautiful in its time?

Can we make ourselves like clay—softening and stretching under the weight and direction of the One who has already defined our purpose?

Can we be like fields—willing to be plowed for one season and watered the next, at the pace set by the One who knows us best?