By: Shannon Chambers
Do you remember when there was space between Labor Day and Christmas? I miss those days. This year, the pressure to put up a tree fell on the heels of the last summer swim. Christmas décor and scarecrows lined store shelves alongside jack-o-lanterns and candy corn. Autumn somehow triggered an unspoken countdown and the world started racing breathlessly to the year’s end. The hurry is hard on a slow southern girl like myself. I am more suited to do one thing at a time. Combining multiple holidays and deadlines into one big jumbled mess stirs a little anxiety in me. For a ‘season’ that is theoretically devoted to the celebration of gratitude and the living manifestation of Peace on Earth, it’s unfortunate that the hectic pace of the year’s 4th quarter leaves little room to reflect on either.
Resist the temptation to fast forward through the rest of the year in a sprint for 2017! Savor each minute, each hour, each day between now and then. Find joy in the journey. Choose to live in the NOW! The God of the NOW, the “I Am,” lives in and through you. He is the Lord of time. One day with Him is as a millennium; because in eternity, where He exists, time is nonexistent. Fall into the peace of Christ that supersedes the demands of any clock and every calendar. Appreciate the seasonal work of the Holy Spirit in your life because He has truly made everything beautiful in its time. May you find rest in Him today and every day, especially when the pace of your progress doesn’t meet the expectations of others during the holiday hustle and bustle. You are right on time because His timing is perfect!
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 – AMP)
Oaks 