“It’s About Time!”

Tents of Mercy Network of Congregations and Humanitarian Aid

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

This morning I stood in line with my 11-year-old son for over two hours waiting for an antigen test so that he can go back to school tomorrow, after being quarantined from exposure to a Corona patient last week.

In the line with us were other parents with children of all ages. Parents chatted with each other or conducted work calls from their cell phones while the line crept forward. The teenagers rolled their eyes at the queue when they looked up from their screens. The small to mid-size children bounced about, some fighting with their siblings or pulling on their parents’ arms, others whining “I’m so booored, hungry, tired, etc.” “How much longer do we have to stand here?!”

I found myself thinking about how funny time is. When I joined the line, I was frustrated and irritated. As the line grew, seeing that I was closer to the front of the line and many more people were behind me, my frustration lessened.

“At least I am closer to the front of the line than they are. I have much less time to wait than they do.” Knowing that I was in a better state than others helped me bear my reality. This was silly, yet if there had been no one else behind me and I had to wait the same amount of time, somehow it would have felt longer.

The Hebrew word for “time” in the scripture verse quoted above is et. This word can mean ‘moment in time’ as well as ‘a season in time’ and it also contains the connotation of the ‘right time.’

Another word for time in both Biblical and modern Hebrew is z’man. Some of our words in Modern Hebrew are different than Biblical Hebrew, but these words carry the same meaning now as they did in the original Hebrew. Two Biblical characters, who heard the voice of God and were available to answer His call and be in the right place at the right time, were Esther and Nehemiah.

For if you remain silent at this time (et), relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time (et) as this? (Esther 4:14)

Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?” It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time (z’man). (Nehemiah 2:6) Between the two words, z’man is the more common. Et is a bit more sophisticated and comes later in the learning process whether for an adult newbie to the language or as a child acquiring her native tongue. But the word z’man is also the root of a whole family of words that have the use of time at their core: zeemen (summon), heezmeen (invite), heezdamen (to happen to), heezdamnut (opportunity), and more.

As a person who immigrated to a country with a vastly different culture than my birth country, and as someone who then married into a third culture, and as someone who is also a member of a multicultural community – I can testify that people relate very differently to the concept of time.

For some cultures, punctuality is a critical value. For other cultures, propriety (the right behavior/response in the right moment) is a critical value. For yet others, preparation or process are the critical elements. Besides culture, personality, family culture and sub-cultures all play into one’s mentality regarding time. On occasions where there is a clash between what one person values about time and what another person values about time, the conflict is inevitable and often complicated. This I know firsthand.

From those famous words in Ecclesiastes, we know that God also values time; although, I would venture to claim, not necessarily in the same way that WE do.

Yeshua himself sometimes did the “wrong” thing at the right time, and the Sadducees and Pharisees were examples of people doing the “right” thing at the wrong time.

If we want to be a people who do the right thing at the right time, we need to align ourselves with God and listen to the Holy Spirit for direction as to what to do, as well as when and where to do it. In this first season of 2022, we need to know the important things for us to be doing at this time. The funny and encouraging thing is that it can be different for each of us. Some of us are building. Some of us are tearing down. Some of us are learning to hold back and rest, while others are learning to move forward in action.

The first century believers must have thought it was “high time” for deliverance from Roman occupation and must have been certain that Yeshua had come to deliver them. The disciples must have thought that “the end of the world” was in sight – in their lifetime or in the next generation at the latest. Yeshua must have felt compassion on His disciples, knowing that the Roman occupation would only end far in the distant future after vast national suffering.

Like our predecessors of two thousand years ago, we feel the crazy upheaval in the world means we are in the “end-times.” We may be getting very close, but I would propose that whether or not we are actually experiencing THE end-times, is beside the point. We need to be plugged into the Holy Spirit whose job it is to direct and guide us regarding the right thing at the right time, whether it is word or deed, confrontation or compassion, action or inaction.

The Apostle Paul prayed it this way over Timothy – that he may be “filled with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives” (Colossians 1:9). May God show us His plan for this time and season, whether it be to deliver us from the present darkness we face or to give us Faith and Patience to withstand our current trials until the time is full for His deliverance.