Just a Time as This

We were made for just this moment. Perhaps Advent is a perfect time to embrace it.

My fifteen-year-old daughter is convinced that she should have been born in the eighties. She loves the movies, “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles.” She loves that we used to make mixed tapes and pass notes. She loves the “Cosby Show.”

Her generation, with all of the texting and sports worship, feels too fast for her somehow. I don’t blame her. I tend to agree. Kids today don’t seem to be very relationship oriented. Nothing seems to go very deep with them. I was reminded this morning, however, as we heard the Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” that when his song, “Against All Odds, was nominated for an Oscar that he wasn’t allowed to perform it. The rumor was that he was too ugly.

Ouch! Well, the eighties was not a generation known for being very deep either. Actually it is known for the opposite, shallowness and materialism, even thought he movies were awesome.

We have all probably contemplated the idea that we are living in the wrong time. I’ve always felt like I should have been a mom  in the fifties. Shopping for poodle skirts to go to sock hops seems right about my speed. That Mrs. Cunningham and June Cleaver really seemed to have it together. Of course, that generation had its own issues. They all do.

When we look back on any time in the past, it’s filtered through a certain nostalgia and amnesia. We tend to forget a lot of the bad stuff, which is okay, unless why try to go back somehow and get stuck there. The truth is, each one of us was chosen by our very careful and thoughtful Maker for just this moment. He had a plan for each one of us from the beginning.

We often wonder, “Why me? or Why now? I’ve often wondered why He chose the time and place that He did for Jesus’ birth. He could have waited a thousand years or so until there were nice, clean hospitals. Why did He choose a stable? If Jesus had been born in the age of the Internet, the news of his birth would have spread like wild-fire. I  also suspect it would have lost much of its wonder as well as it was shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook.

A young queen by the name of Esther, was once told by her uncle, when she was reluctant to make the bold choice, the right choice, the dangerous choice, that perhaps, “she had come to her royal position for such a time as this.” Those words hit home with the young queen and she boldly made a move that was instrumental in saving the Jewish people just in the nick of time.

Esther couldn’t have known it at the time, what the huge ramifications were for her obedience. I doubt seriously, that a young, teenager named Mary could have even began to fathom the change in the entire balance of the universe, that her obedience to God brought about. But, God knew.

We see it over and over in the Bible; obedience to God and His timing which often seems to be the very last second, but always in time, leads to incredible results. Advent may be the perfect time to reflect upon and accept that we are here at this very moment for a reason. Perhaps we should really make an effort to embrace it and instead of asking, “Why me?” or “Why now?”; we should be saying “Thy will be done” and “Show me the way, your way.” If we are patient, He will. Who knows what could happen?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂