An Appointed Time

Word of the Week: Time
Appointments! We live our lives here on earth by our day timers and our appointment books. We know we have to be at work at a certain time, we have to pick up Susie or Johnnie from school at a certain time. And we even have to be in our pew at a certain time on Sunday a.m. Did you ever think that Jesus too had an appointment calendar? Listen to what the Apostle John recorded about Jesus “My time has not yet arrived” Jn 7:6; “My time has not yet come” Jn 7:8; “no man laid a hand on Him, because His time had not come” 7:30. But at the appropriate time Jesus’ Calendar book turned the page to the right date and the right time: Jesus replied, "The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jn 12:23. I often pondered why God chose that time and not a time earlier? Why not in the time of Noah or Abraham or David? Why the 1st century? What made that time the “right” time? Theologians and Scholars say this prophecy and that prophecy had to be fulfilled. But, God is God, couldn’t he have expedited those prophecies to be fulfilled earlier? I don’t have the answer except what Isaiah wrote long ago and I trust God in His sovereignty to have brought about it in His perfect time: Isa 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The word “time” is especially relevant to me this day. It was on Oct 23, 2008 that my precious Mother’s appointment book came to the last page and the last verse. At approximately 9 a.m. Jesus sent His angels to close her earthly book and begin her new book in the heavens with Him. It was her appointed time just as the author of Ecclesiastes reminds us: For everything there is an appointed time, and an appropriate time for every activity on earth Eccl 3:1.


So what does all of this mean to us today about our appointments and our daytimers? We all have an appointed time as Hebrews reminds us: 9:27 And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment.. The question is are you ready for your appointment? If God should send His angels to close your earthly daytimer will you say as Jesus said “The time has come…”