time marches on and...stops

Yesterday was my 57th birthday. I am in the ballpark of the time of life when my father died of cancer. My daughter commented to me that I was starting to get some wrinkles. That made me think that the man she is looking at as her father is similar in look to the last recollection of my father. He didn't age beyond this. For most of my life I have thought as my father of being "ahead" of me in life experience and wisdom. At this point I have served in ministry longer than he did. At this point the life issues including professional issues that I face were the ones he was facing when he died. I have "caught up" with my father. A strange thought. All those years ago when he died, I was panicky because he wouldn't be around to be there when I needed help, got in a pinch, bail me out etc. Now, I look to my Father in heaven, not to bail me out, but to journey with daily. The years have been generous to me.

Tomorrow the Christian world observes time standing still. God enters into our world in flesh and all time now enters into "kingdom" time. Not time chronologically, time passing by, but time as a gift of the moment, of deep love and relationship that is surrounded by forgiveness. None of us can improve on forgiveness from God in Jesus Christ. There is no "progress" with it. It is! A gift. In the now. Time doesn't really stop, but it doesn't march on any more. Time is now one piece of the world that is dying in my own life. Like Garrison Keiller says about Lake Wobegone, "the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve." Time cannot improve what has been given to me and to us. We can though begin to see it more and more for what it is...heaven has come to earth in the Prince of Peace. This Christmas I give my allegiance to the sovereign ruler, the Prince of Peace, over any other ruler and my loyalty as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom to God's realm.