This is His Time

Somehow life manages to fast forward itself until you realize it had come to a pause for God knows how long. You find yourself being led to a bench where you “sit and wait” for the next round in the game. You see your friends continue on as if you never had been with them the previous round. Eyes squinting, you make out their expressions: joyful. Yes, even without you in the game. Then you wonder why you are on that boring wooden bench, scratching over your jersey shorts, when you thought you are as capable as the rest are, and had went over the same training they had went through. Why did it seem unfair all of a sudden? You scan through your brain and find nothing to be of good reason for this stagnation brought about by external factors. They move forward but you remain. They advance with interlocking arms but there you are, held back by something you could not even make out. You try to say something but you do not know where to start. They are there; you are here. Just here – a place you consider stuffed and suffocating.

I had just finished watching This Is Our Time. A Christian film, directed by Lisa Arnold, that tells of the story of a group of friends who weave through the “real world”, trying to listen to the Lord’s perfect will, and obey it. There were good and bad jobs, romantic feelings, disappointments, frustrations, and insecurities to juggle around with their desire to follow God. Then there was Ethan.

Ethan seems like me in some ways.

1.       He’s an English major.

2.       He thinks his friends are on this new game the Lord has given them and he’s left out.

To tell you honestly, I have no idea how to start telling this story. I do not know where to begin, or if there truly is one starting point for all these. Maybe I shouldn’t say something at all, huh. If I do, I doubt I’ll have anything else left to say to our youth pastor tomorrow. I had been planning on talking with him for a long time already. And now that it’s getting ripe, I might as well squeeze out time from my tight schedule.

We are in the field, you see, and I was pulled out all of a sudden. Why, I’m still quite unsure. But as the movie had said it, “It’s not what the Lord wants you to do. It’s where (and what) He wants you to be.” Spiritual maturity has nothing to do with the ministries I am involved in. I had learned that the hard way a long time ago. Right now, I might as well say the Lord is repeating this lesson to me. Refreshment, I suppose. :3 It’s terribly agonizing on my part, especially watching the rest of your friends play with all their hearts, but it’s getting better even when I barely notice any changes. I do not know what will happen to the plants I had started to water. Though I also suppose I should leave this to the Gardener Himself.

"This is how life goes: One moment it's bright, hopeful, and the next, something seemingly inexplicable happens, but God is there. One day you think you have it all figured out and then you realize there's something even better because God is there. One day follows the next. Good times and bad times. Times when your dreams are on hold, and times when they come true. Times where you feel alone, and times where you feel love overwhelming. Times where you make sacrifices, and times where you are overwhelmed by blessings because you are obedient, and God is there. He takes all these times, and He works in you. He works through you. Give it all to Him. Because this is His time."

P.S. I had two posts today. Check out the previous entry for my new poem. <3 Kisses, A.