Wednesday, October 28, 2009

In the Ordinariness of Human Time

"In the fullness of time, God..." That line begins one of my very favorite Scripture passages from Galations 4:4.

Today, though, as I was thinking upon this loved verse, my mind kept switching the words. Over and over in my head I pondered, "In the ordinariness of human time, God..."

And then I finally realized that this second phrase was not much different than the first.

In the fullness of God's time, in the ordinariness of human time, our Heavenly Father does his gentle and loving work. For some reason this is always surprising to me. I feel like the fullness of God's time should be announced with fanfare and loud celebration. It sometimes even seems to me like the earth should stand still in its orbit, halting all ordinary chronological time, just to salute the fullness of God's time.

But the deeper I peer into the work of God in this world, I always find that the fullness of God's time arrives in the very, very ordinariness of human time. It is in the mangers and caves and stables and the drudgeries of ordinary chronological time that the promises of God find their fulfillment.