God’s Clock Is Never Wrong

[Jesus] said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”

Acts 1:7

A story is told of a man who rushed into a suburban railroad station one morning and, almost breathlessly, asked the station agent, “When does the 8:01 train leave?”

“At 8:01, sir” was the answer.

“Well,” the man replied, “it’s 7:59 by my watch, 7:57 by the town clock, and 8:04 by the station clock. Which am I to go by?”

“You can go by any clock you wish,” said the agent, “but you can’t go by the 8:01 train, for it has already left.”

It is easy for us to be tempted into one of two errors concerning time. The first is to believe that things just happen when they happen, totally at random, without rhyme or reason. The other is to suppose that we can schedule and manage—and thus control—every detail of our lives. God, our sovereign Lord, stands outside of time and controls it. This realization can either make us fatalistic or incredibly confident and patiently trusting. Everything in our individual lives occurs when it occurs because our loving Lord commands or allows it. Therefore, we can go into the future knowing that history has a purpose and that God awaits us there.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN