contemplative—Brennan Manning, A Stranger to Self-Hatred: A Glimpse of Jesus
I feel as if I'm only beginning to grasp the freedom God has given and is giving me, moment by moment. More than once today, I simply felt free. Yet time...I don't know what to do with it. Time frightens me. I know the damage it can do, what it can strip from a man. End up on the wrong side of time, and you'll forever be an outsider, a stranger.
That's the message I've believed, anyway. And with plenty of reason. But maybe He's telling me something else today, redeeming my unique relationship to time. I never expected the years I have now; mostly, they've had a ring of hollowness. But what's the difference between emptiness and openness? Hope, perhaps.
Several times a day most people will glance at their watch or the wallclock or ask, "What time is it?" To our earth-bound minds Jesus whispers in prayer: "Now is the time! The 'real' world of price tags, who shot J.R., Gucci handbags, monopoly money, the iron umbrella of nuclear deterrence, beaver vests, Persian rugs, silk underwear and Super Bowl LXXVII, is passing away. Now is the time to stop running around frantically like Lancelot's horse in four directions at once and quietly remember that only one thing is necessary. Now is time for creative response to my Word and saving solutions for your brothers and sisters."
—Brennan Manning, A Stranger to Self-Hatred: A Glimpse of Jesus
There's something beginning now, something I'm called to, even before it's revealed. Whatever else it might be, it's my life. I have no idea how He's going to fill it up. "Show up and see what happens." Prepare me for this time, even as You have been all along.
Who knows whether you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
—Mordecai (Esther 4:14)
