God’s Time

Armodoxy for Today: God’s Time

This week we’re exploring timing: how events, large and small, take place over the course of time. Time marches slow when you’re young. You can’t wait to get older, to walk to school by yourself, ride a bike, later a car. To date. To stay out. You can’t wait to get older. Time is slow. And the older you get, time seems to be rushing through at too fast of a pace. You want to pull the breaks, but there’s no way to slow it down.

Time is in fact, relative, not on because of any complex Einsteinian equation but by simple mathematics. For a child of two years, a year is a half a lifetime! For a person of 70 years, that same year is 1/70^th of a lifetime. Of course it goes by fast!

Sometimes to cut our anxiety and temper our impatience we refer to “God’s time,” an idea that God has a predetermined time for events to happen, and that it may differ from our own sense of time. In non-religious terms, we say, “In due time.” God’s time is beyond our measurements. In the passage where Jesus is tempted by the Devil, it says, “In an instant he showed him all the kingdoms on Earth.” (Luke 4) That instant might be understood as outside of time.

In Armenian churches throughout the world the symbol of “է” (pronounced ‘eh’) is found atop altar tables, on khatchkars (stone carvings of crosses) and on ornamental vestments. The “է” is the seventh letter of the Armenian alphabet, seven being the number of universe, or completeness, that is, the combination of four (for the corners of the earth) and three (the number of the heavens as in the Trinity). In the Armenian language that symbol/letter is the verb to be in the present tense. It is. It is, is the name of God. No He was, not He will be, but He is. He is the eternal present. In the Old Testament, in the Book of Exodus (3:14), God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the People of God: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” And before Biblical times, throughout Armenia, near the base of Mt. Ararat, at the cradle of civilization, markings and symbols point in temporal terms to the eternal truth of living in the moment. That’s Armodoxy. That’s “O.G. Christianity.” In Jesus’ experience, “in an instant showing all the kingdoms of Earth.” As we grow in faith we align more and more with the Eternal and with eternity, with the “է”.  Aligning with “է”, finding God, is the purpose of good religion and certainly the call made to us by Christ. There, we find that God’s timing is perfect.

We pray, from the words of St. Peter, (2Peter 3:9) Lord, You are not slow in keeping Your promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, You are patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but for everyone to come to repentance. Keep me strong in my faith and in my love for You and all my brothers and sisters. Amen.