Daily Meditation: "A Time To Act"

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

SCRIPTURE

“God looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.” - Exodus 2:25

REFLECTION

When in your life have you known in your heart, your mind, and your gut that it was time to stop being dormant and do something? What prompted you to change from a state of inactivity to activity? We are usually content to let things be as they are until we reach a certain point (usually a crisis point) and then we decide to make a change.

One could make the argument that the people of Israel had been in a crisis point for a very long time before God knew it was time to act and commissioned Moses. But then, God’s time isn’t our time. What seems like ages to us may be nothing but the blink of the Eternal Eye in God’s sense of Time.

I think of that often as I observe the protests, the anger, the pain, and the suffering around us that has been with us for far too long. When will God look down again and know that it is time to act? Or, maybe, God is looking down and wondering the same thing about us. When will we know it’s time to act?

As I am reminded in many conversations of late, though it seems like things continue to be as they have been for a millennium, they are in fact...slowly….changing. The actions taken by those before us have slowly shaped and changed the world into a more inclusive one. In truth, though, it takes generations and baby steps and often the seeds we plant in our lifetimes may not bear fruit for a generation or more. It can give us the sense that nothing is changing and our actions are all for naught, even though the truth of it is that we are living through a change this very moment. Will we see and know the outcome? Maybe. Maybe not. Does it matter?

What matters is knowing when it is time to act and doing so for its own sake. Today is a perfect time to start.

PRAYER

God Of Action, grant us the wisdom to know when it is time to act and the courage to do so.

Amen.

Peace,

Shawn