But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. [2 Peter 3:8 (NLT)]
Along the road to the Serengeti, somewhere near the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, is a crescent-shaped sand dune. Measuring about 30-feet in height and 328-feet long along its curves, it is known as the Shifting Sands. Rich in iron and highly magnetized, the sand sticks to itself when tossed in the air. When the wind blows, its particles fall back on the dune rather than get carried away by the breeze. The dune, however, is constantly on the move as the prevailing winds slowly move the entire thing across the land. Moving about 50-feet a year, it’s believed that the Shifting Sands have been traveling the savannah for more than three thousand years, sometimes changing both shape and direction. Of course, the dune moves so gradually that you don’t see its motion. Nevertheless, stakes in the ground indicate its location in previous years.
Like the Shifting Sands, God often appears to be standing still. David was anointed king as a boy but he didn’t rule over all of Israel until he was 37 years old. After being promised a son, Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years before Isaac’s birth. It was 22 years between Joseph’s prophetic dream that his brothers would bow to him and the day they did! Think of the centuries that passed between God’s promise of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants and Israel’s arrival there. By the time Jesus was born, thousands of years had passed since God’s first promise of a Savior in Genesis 3, one thousand had passed since God’s promise in 2 Samuel that David’s line would continue eternally, and about 700 years had elapsed since the many Messianic prophecies found in Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah! God wasn’t quick but He made good on His promises—God always does!
God moves at His own pace—and it often seems undetectable at the time. Just because we don’t see Him move, however, doesn’t mean He’s standing idly by, forgotten His promises, or ignoring His children. God works in the unseen and just because we can’t see His hand at work doesn’t mean it isn’t happening! I never saw the Shifting Sands move and yet I know they moved 1½ to 3 inches the day I was there!
Like Tanzania’s moving dune, more is happening in God’s realm than meets our mortal eyes. As Christians, we must “live by believing and not by seeing,” and “walk by faith, not by sight.” [2 Corinthians 5:7] We live by believing in God’s promises—rather than what we think we see (or don’t see) in our world! God often seems incredibly slow but His time is not the same as ours and His perspective is far broader than ours! More is happening than meets the eye! God’s promises never fail and He always is right on time!
Following the Parable of the Sower and the Soils, Jesus told another parable about the coming of the Kingdom. In the Parable of the Weeds, after the farmer plants wheat, his enemy sows weeds in the same field. Jesus’ hearers would have known the weed likely was darnel. Called wheat’s “evil twin,” it looks and behaves much like wheat. When wheat is consumed it gives life but, when darnel is consumed, this inedible look-alike causes nausea and even death. Sowing weeds in a field was an act of sabotage and Roman law specifically prohibited doing so with darnel. When nations went to war, agricultural vandalism was a common practice. Olive trees were cut down, grape vines destroyed, and fields were salted so nothing would grow.
As we came together in worship, each of us bringing the Lord our own private sins, sorrows, doubts, and fears, the hymn’s words, “Just as I am… I come, I come,” seemed a fitting way to start the service. Because its heartfelt words are so relatable, Just as I Am is one of my favorite hymns. Curious about its origin, I learned that its words were written by a Victorian hymn writer named Charlotte Elliott. The daughter of an evangelist, she suffered a serious illness at the age of 32 that left her an invalid for the rest of her life. Angry about what she perceived as uselessness because of her disability, Elliott became severely depressed and spiritually lost. After a visiting minister counseled her to come to Jesus, she asked how she could come to Him when all she had was her anger, sadness, questions, and broken body. The clergyman’s response was simple: “Come to Him just as you are.” Although she gave her life to Christ at that time, she continued to be plagued by depression.
The story is told of a Russian rabbi standing on a hillside with his student. As they looked down at the valley below, the men watched in horror as a band of Cossacks charged into their village. They heard the townspeople’s terrified screams as they were slaughtered and saw the smoke rise as their village was set afire by the marauders. With tears in his eyes, the rabbi looked up to heaven and cried, “If only I were God!” His troubled student asked what the rabbi would do differently if he were God. “Nothing,” replied the old man, “but then I would understand why!”
