Detour Vs Destination: God’s Wanderers Are Never Lost

We’re all stuck in an unprecedented vortex of wheel-spinning frustration. Mankind continue to stand at a door to a formidable unknown. A biological enemy feeds our agoraphobic propensity to tuck into our homes, staring us down. It remains a sensible plan of action to protect others and ourselves, especially the highly fragile. But as we gather for battle, another adversary looms.  In this oddly meandering battle of detour vs. destination, it’s clear: God’s wanderers are never lost.

As spot on as that is, it’s hard to recognize this truth on a day-to-day basis. The simplest errand is a roll of the dice. Many of us long for a pre Covid time when trips highlighted in red Sharpie decorated our calendars. Now we’re grounded. But all this time of sequestering has caused me to think a lot about the difference between the pause button and the stop button. It’s more significant than it might sound at face value.

Hit the Pause Button

Any pause represents a halting. It means we simply put things on hold. Covid caused us to hit pause on group meetings, friend and family gatherings, medical care, grooming, education and traveling. For most of us, being on hold is annoying. While for God a thousand days is like a year, a minute on hold to us feels like an eternity. Our time is valuable! As we “hold” during phone calls we are no doubt perusing emails, checking social media, brewing a triple espresso or some secondary tasks. In some ways, pause is much harder to stomach than stop. The unknown restart date is frustrating in its own right. That is markedly different from an actual stop, which by definition could mean more of a permanent halting.

On hold modalities during the pandemic stifle us in significant ways. Cars sit in the garage. Home food and cleaning supplies dwindle until it’s time to brave the store again. Our collective patience is wearing paper thin.

Slow Sands Through the Hourglass

But other things seems to proliferate. A week feels like a month. The time it takes to actually run a single errand multiplies itself by four. And if you were fortunate enough to get a stimulus check, it no doubt felt like it took six months to arrive. Now another may be coming and the wait begins anew.

Pondering these frustrating freeze frames and delays recently lead me to some helpful conclusions. Whether time felt like it was dragging or disappearing rapidly in another way, one thing became clear: we cannot control the pace of its passing. Time is a finite gift from God. And whether it feels rushed or excruciatingly slow to pass, the seconds are still seconds and the months are still months. Our mushrooming angst doesn’t alter Time’s finite increments. We can only change our attitudes about how time itself passes or is spent. That doesn’t come naturally, though. Mired in frustration, we instead steep like tea bags in boiling water.

Discerning Good Over Evil

God’s view cools the boiling point way down. We read in Psalm 90:4 that “a thousand years is like one day” to the Lord. Because He’s the Alpha and the Omega. His measure of time is on a clock so different from ours that we would likely not recognize its face. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 we read about the varied seasons and times for every matter under heaven. These familiar verses refer to various times of sowing and reaping, breaking down and building up, laughing and mourning. But probably one of the most telling verses applicable to our time is this one from Ephesians 5:16, which essentially says to make the best use of your time, because the days are evil.

In my upbeat vocation of encouraging others, I rarely speak of this reality. The fact is not everyone wants to hear about the evil days we are in now. In fact, for years I used to entirely dismiss such talk when it came up in my social circles. I deluded myself into thinking as long as I stayed focused on eternity and all the good things to come, I didn’t need to concern myself with evil.

But an honest embrace of all that’s good includes an upfront acknowledgment of what isn’t. That may sound simplistic but there is some real truth to that distinction. In Isaiah 5:20 the prophet warns readers by saying “woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” It’s important to be able to distinguish between the two so we recognize the good fruit.

Resting in His Perfect Presence

Spending our time in pursuit of good things and taking time to center our thoughts on Him not only pleases God, it calms us, too. At the end of the day, no matter what has occurred during any given day, we can take refuge in this verse from Psalm 31:15: “My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors.”

In the past our enemies and persecutors might have been individuals or groups. But our new enemies might “present” more in the form of illness, economic hardship, curtailment of freedoms and other unseen entities. Thankfully, He’ll still prepare a table for us in the presence of those enemies, too (Psalm 23.) Even if we didn’t see these enemies coming, our Kinsman Redeemer always did. And He always will.

As I reframed my thinking about the day, I also did some soul searching about the future. Where media inspires alarm and dread over what is to come tomorrow, I’ve traded in that short-sightedness more akin to stopwatch timekeeping in for good. In its place, I hold in my hand an hourglass. The sands pass more slowly and their pace calms rather than alarms. And at the end of the day, I can rest in the knowledge that when the last grain passes, our Redeemer and Creator will make good on His promise to “make all things new. (Isaiah 43:18.)