IN THE NICK OF TIME -- GOD'S TIME

Years ago, I read the book “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. In it is an intriguing chapter about time, from God’s perspective. So complex, is Lewis’ take on time, from a divine vantage point, he actually offers his reader to skip it altogether. Not one to pass up a challenge, I forged ahead, and it has always stuck with me. Throughout the years, his wisdom has rung truer. What was once as clear as mud has, for me, crystallized into something I can catch a glimpse of from time to time.

Most recently, this issue of God’s timing reached a pinnacle of clarity as my son began his 8th grade school year. A right-brained child in a left brained world, my child has not had an easy go of it in school. For several years now, we have tried to relocate him to a new environment more appropriate for the visual learner cut from non-traditional cloth, yet in the interim years he had to suffer much ridicule from his peers. This adolescent age still shows no mercy as we read headlines of the Phoebe Price’s of the world taking their own lives for the suffering endured from peer groups, misguided and cruel.

Had God not heard our prayers? This is a cry familiar to all of us at some point in our lives, and I believe it comes down to this issue of time. Our perspective is that God views our lives on the same linear continuum as we do. He does not. His view is from above. We live from point to point. God sees the whole line! He knew us before we were born. He knows all of our days. He sees our life from above, the beginning to the end. (Psalm 139:13-16)

In times of suffering, we feel he has abandoned us, he hasn’t heard our prayers, yet God hears and answers all prayers. (Mark 11:24, John 14:13, John 16:23) He doesn’t always answer them in our timeframe, however. As C.S. Lewis describes Him, the author writing the book of our lives, He does not live in the novel of our lives, He created it. With the stroke of His quill, He writes and as He lay the book aside it is at the same time the year 2000, when we prayed, and 2010 when we received our answer; or, to us, when it seems He picked the book up once more . . . a vapor in time to God, a decade to us. He has not abandoned us. In fact, He has shown up in the nick of time.

Louie Giglio gave a sermon once about a girl, an atheist, who died suddenly after coming to Christ. Her brother had a difficult time understanding how God could allow her to leave this earth just as she came to know the Lord as her Savior. How could He not save her? In the end, her brother realized, God did show up. She died just as she came to the Lord – in the nick of time.

I read a blog post this week, Be "the Hands and Feet".  It was about a young girl, Nabakoza, found dying in a dilapidated hut in Uganda. She seemed to have been lying there for 10 years in her own excrement, with no food or water, for who knows how long. A missionary, Renee Bach, found her, carried her off, but was turned away at every hospital. “Too far gone,” she was told. Today, 48 hours later, Nabakoza is alive, eating, and sitting up. God showed up, through a missionary, in the nick of time.

Last week, two youth died in a car accident in Capljina, Bosnia. Racing their car at high speeds, they crashed into a mountain and were killed instantly. Where was God? These families grieve. They are in shock over such senseless deaths. Where is God in this story? We don’t know. We do know there will be a ripple effect. He has a purpose for our lives. He had a purpose for theirs. We don’t know it. We do not see what he sees. He is there in the good times and the bad, and he will bring good from all things. (Romans 8:28) Just when we have lost all hope, He will show up, in he nick of time.

In just a few weeks, Veronika Stasjuk will be married to Mufid Besic at the ECC in Capljina, by Pastor Bernard. So many have waited for this joyous occasion, not the least of which are Veronika and Mufid! There will be absences from the pews as all of the Atlanta teams wish we could be there supporting, celebrating and loving them through this amazing chapter in their lives. But, this absence pales in comparison to the empty seat left for Rajka Koprivnjak, Veronika’s grandmother who received her angel’s wings on May 29th. Rajka suffered terribly from cancer and was in great pain particularly toward the end. She was a small woman of big faith, great passion and a strong grip for such a slight woman. I’m quite sure her plan was to dance at Veronika’s wedding. Perhaps this is God’s plan as well. No longer able to get around on her earthly legs, her Heavenly ones will do just fine. God’s timing is perfect. Dance Baka, dance. Maybe we’ll hear the thunder from your footsteps!


In the nick of time, our prayers were answered for our son. Just when we began to fear we ran out of options, the ideal school for my son responded to our call and accepted him, off year, by the grace of God. There are too many questions that do not have answers of how this could have happened, but I find it remarkable our anxieties were quieted in this new school year themed the year of “fearlessness!"  How could they have known? They could not. But, God did. He showed up in our circumstances in His perfect timing. Not when we thought we had the right solution, but when He did. Not when worry gripped us with a stranglehold promising to choke out what was left of our faith. But, when our faith still held fast to a single strand of hope in a solution, a divine one. For worry solves nothing, solutions do – divine solutions begotten by worry surrendered. Surrendered to a God, not bound by time, as you and I know it, but to the author of time who knows no bounds.





Still in One Peace,
Kathy