In God’s Will in His Time

IN GODS WILL IN HIS TIME

Ephesians 5:15 ‘See then that you walk not irresponsibly but diligently and wisely, redeeming the time, because we live in times of much corruption. Therefore, do not be thoughtless, but seek to understand what the will of the Lord is. (NKJ)

The word used for ‘will of The Lord’ is thelema - God’s heart to bless us by bringing us into his will for our life. 
The word for redeeming used here is exagoraz??; to rescue from loss, improve opportunity, to buy up or ransom; 
The word used for ‘time’ here is kairos – God’s appointed time, not chronos – Clock time. 

There are times when God brings us to a place of surrendering our will to his so that we can become the person he has truly created us to be. These are times of change for us where there comes a break from our past way of seeing things and doing things, a change of thinking – metanoia - repentance. It is an ongoing experience.
That is God redeeming the time for us in his appointed timing for a new beginning for us in his will for our journey in life.

Redeeming means that God is able to buy back and restore all that we have grieved over as being lost. He won’t bring the same things back, the same years with the same circumstances, or the same people and the same events, but he brings something new and something better. His redeeming power renews time that we think has been wasted, effort that has come to nothing, and hopes that have been dashed. God’s redemption buys back for us all his plans and purposes and gets us on track with his great desire for our blessing as his child. It means new and better opportunities and a new and better understanding of his will for us in all things - it always gets better. That is the ongoing ‘Behold I make all things new’ promise of Jesus. 
 
When we become conscious that God is doing that reordering and redeeming work in our lives, that moment of redeemed time makes up for all lost time and places us in his will for an ‘all things new’ future. 
The apostle Paul made up for all the wasted time and effort of his evil persecution of Christians in one moment of time on the road to Damascus. But how could Paul know how to get into line with God’s design in God’s appointed time until he knew who he was meant to be?  God had to tell Paul who he was (Acts 9:15 Ananias). Jesus told the disciple Ananias in a vision to tell Paul that he was a chosen vessel to carry God’s presence with him at all times, and what things he would suffer in his name in the doing of his will.

God also tells us who we really are by being joined in the one Spirit with Jesus to realise that we can occupy the same eternal time frame as he does, knowing he is with us wherever we go. This becomes a new way of living.

John 12:26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him.
The above Scripture shows us that who we are meant to be, and where we are meant to be at any given time is being with Jesus and sharing in what he is doing. Jesus was the only person who did not need redeeming of the time because he knew who he was all the time and where he was and where he was going with the Father in his empowering grace. Whatever plans Jesus made as a person were surrendered into the will of the Father.
Paul must have asked himself at times ‘Why am I in prison, why did I just get sick with a disease of the eyes, why did I get shipwrecked, beaten up, ignored and insulted? The answer is - that is where Jesus was, and you can be there where he is at any time in his grace. 

We can become fixated with chronos time (everyday clock time), which focuses on what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. God is always in kairos time (God’s appointed times) and these are two different worlds of time that exist side by side. God is always drawing us out of our preoccupation with clock time and the pressures that it brings, like wasted time, lost time, not enough time, too late time. He is always drawing us out of there and inviting us into his Kairos appointed time.

An example of this occurs when the Holy Spirit prompts you to pray for someone and when you do you will be where Jesus is because he is also there with that person in their need (even if they don’t know it), and you are part of that ‘being there’ because that is where your prayer is going. God is blessed by this timing because at that moment, creatively arranged by God for you, your heart beats with his. The person you’re praying for is also blessed (in whatever way God may choose to bless them) and you are blessed because there is no greater meaning for you in that moment than in what you are doing. That moment releases you into God’s love and peace and joy and that moment brings about change for God’s will to be done.

We all want things to change for us and to change for the better. Many sincere people get swept up with the new ideas that roar through the world like a storm. They try harder with all the new ideas, new experiences, new challenges, and new pathways but life doesn’t bring the change that they want. Having new ideas is not the same as becoming a new person living within God’s idea of who we are. We are God’s vessels that carry his presence into where he is taking us. He accomplishes that purpose despite our going round in circles and getting distracted. However, when we are about doing our daily clock time routine and maybe think that our routine is separate from doing God’s will, we simply bring that chronos clock time into God’s Kairos appointed time and it becomes lifted into a place where we bring the Heavenly into the earthly things and we move forward with God.

Just let a person make this one discovery: The world cannot take us to where only God destined us to be. God moves forward with his overall plan for the world and he moves forward with his plan for our lives. There is an energy which directs us, moves us and carries us, even though we cannot see where it is taking us. That energy is the hidden power of the wind of the Spirit which blows where it wills.
We cannot see our final destination but with this kind of faith we see through the present disorder of this world system which is under the tyranny of clock time, and we enter the parallel realm of eternal time, God’s Kairos time. God’s grace lifts us across the bridge from the world of fear-and-stress time to stillness-and-trust time. That is the redeeming of life and of time. We can only be amazed and grateful that all of us are being carried by this power and perhaps only regret that we are not carried by it more willingly, joyfully, and completely. 

We can learn to practice being carried by the power of his grace and it need only take a minute of time where we consciously place ourselves in his time and in his presence. 
This does not have to be some rapturous feeling of his presence but a faithful acknowledgement of his nearness to us. The sense of God’s presence comes and goes in a way that I do not understand. Grace is grace - it is a gift.
This practice of coming into his presence closes the door on the power of anxiety and negative emotions and opens the door to receiving God’s love and peace, and it allows for a gracious transformation of our souls.