A Time and Place

A Time and Place*

“The time came…”
“My time isn’t here yet…”
“We know where he comes from…”
“I know where I came from…”

Reading John 7 & 8, I couldn’t help but be struck by the repeated allusions to the ‘time’ and the ‘place’.

It seems that for Jesus it was seldom just ‘any time’; it was either the right time or the wrong time.

And the people around him often made hasty and ill-informed judgements that he came from either the right place or the wrong place.

If I want to keep in step with the Spirit, I need to learn to be sensitive to the right time: to speak or to stay silent; to step forward or to stand back; to confront or to patiently wait; to work or to rest.

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 still applies. To know ‘the right time’ mostly requires that I simply pause long enough to consciously reflect before Father, rather then responding instinctively to the immediate demands around me.

Equally I need to maintain a clearer sense of ‘where I’m from’. If not, then others will be quick to impose their own view on ‘where I’m coming from’.

As with Jesus, the place that I’m ‘from’ is not what people assume, and it is less a matter of geography or culture, and much more a matter of relationship. Jesus came ‘from the Father’, who constantly remained his fundamental ‘point of reference’.

I need to make space to locate myself rightly with my Father, because if not then other things – “the worries and riches and pleasures of  this  life” – will quickly come to define me.

Who am I? Where am I from? What time is it? These questions matter.

Spirit of God, prompt me daily to hesitate before you long enough to face these questions. And shape my response.