Good morning, friends.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 3:1-2, “Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple.”
Time certainly is a precious commodity. You cannot make it, you cannot recycle it, you cannot buy it. You get only a certain amount of it, but how much remains unknown until it’s gone. Time can fly by, it can march on, and it can seem to crawl. Some of us only endure it, while others embrace and live it to the fullest. It brings everything we have to us, but it can’t bring anything back for us. We try in every way we can to save it, but we waste it without even realizing it. But time well spent is priceless, perhaps the most satisfying of all the things we can do. When you have used your time well, the pleasure and peace and contentment that follow prove to be worth the effort that may have gone into how you used up some of the finite number of minutes you have on earth. Peter and John knew this. They knew that what mattered most was not what they intended to do, or not what they managed not to do. What mattered most was what they did do with their time. So they went to meet with God during the hour of prayer.
But things didn’t turn out as they had planned. They were intending to go to the temple to meet with God, but instead they met Jesus lying in the street outside. Their regular time of seeking Him led them straight to where God wanted them. So where does your regular time of seeking Him take you? Are you rigid in your ways, or can God still direct you? What do you have in your schedule that counts for regular time with God? Are you so constricted by commitments and deadlines that you miss the gospel that is all around you? Are you so busy that instead of three times of prayer like the Jews had, you do well to snap off a thank you before you eat your three meals? Coming to Jesus can require some time. No relationship survives without it. And coming to Jesus may include some detours. But it’s in the detours that you may find the very thing that God intended for you.
As we seek Him today, be sure you’re seeking Him, and not just seeking to check Him off your list. Don’t fix your eyes so narrowly that you miss what’s plainly before you. Pray for eyes to see and ears to hear.
Have a fantastic Wednesday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
