Time is fulfilled
This may not make a lot of sense to some people, but if you have read my
book online for free it may fill in some interesting gaps. I do not know if it is significant for others,
but the time sequences in my life seem to happen in circles. I kept pondering this and had to write it so I could sleep.
14Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand:
repent ye, and believe the gospel.
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Here I sit at my computer at 1:30 in the morning. Why am I doing that because certain things
that have been happening lately? It has
bought me a feeling that I am approaching the end of another circle in my life.
My book “A Little Further Down the Path” shares several of the circles I have
experienced in my life. To me the Bible
talks and shares things in several circles. Some
long and some short, but they are circles which end up back where they started. It has been fifty years this month since I
left home and started a large circle in my life.
In Genesis 15 God told Abraham what land would be a big circle in Israel’s experience. He told them they would go into captivity
for four hundred years and then they would "return to their land".in the fourth
generation. Over the years the length of
a generation has been a point of discussion in many of my conversations about
the Bible. Israel has been removed from their land and returned several times in history. God makes it pretty clear on
two points, it will be 400 years and they will return in the fourth
generation. I am not a mathematician or
a Bible scholar but common sense tells me those generations have to be more
than 100 years. The only place I find
God giving a time frame longer than 100 years is Genesis 6:3 where he says man’s
time will be limited to 120 years. The
strange thing is that Moses lived 120 years and yet he never entered the
Promised Land. With the wondering in the
wilderness 470 years had passed when they reentered the Promised Land. Four times 120 would be 480 so they did
return in the 4th generation.
You would be amazed how many preachers have told me I am wrong about
that number because it does not fit “their” calculations.
Most of this is in my book and I need to not repeat that stuff but
explain why I find the circles of time in my life significant. It is mainly
because they are getting much shorter. I tell how I went to Vietnam and
returned back to the very point I started.
Another circle started about 1981
and ended about 1990. It started when I
asked the Lord to show me how he would punish a man if I turned the matter over
to him. I did and he did. I certainly did not expect it to happen. It was a very humbling experience when it did, because how he did it, which was to
give me that man’s job.
The next circle started on 7 February 1992 with the crash of a military
C-130 into a hotel in Evansville, IN. I
was interviewed by CNN and it restored a long lost friendship with a person I
grew up with and had lost contact with. I had a heart attack on the 22 January
2004 in Baltimore, MD ending my trucking career. That circle ended when I flew
into Louisville, KY and looked down on the fleet of C-130’s parked on the
tarmac. It was the home base of the
aircraft than crashed into the hotel. It started before I got my own truck and ended with the end of my driving career.
In August 2010 my youngest daughter, Glenda Lynn, passed away after a
seven year battle with a brain tumor. She left me her Boston Terrier, Forrest
Gump, in her Will. She also left her
home for her sister to administer till her children are of age to receive it. Glenda
was a nurse by profession. This month my
grandson and his girlfriend who had been taking care of the home moved out. We decided to rent the house rather than let it sit empty. The lady who is
going to rent it is the niece of the lady who owned it before my daughter
bought it. She is a x-ray technician and
she has two Boston Terriers. A strange coincidence?
In March 2011 I started a blog with the encouragement of my daughter
Angel. She had done one for a class she
had taken. She teaches Spanish. She knew I liked to write and she encouraged me in
that direction. In May of 2012 I went to
my first writer’s conference. It was at
the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer’s Conference. It was a rewarding experience and had many
neat people. I am a bit of a people
watcher and one lady caught my attention.
She walked with a large stick much like they used in the Lord of the
Rings. Her attire was a little different
also. While curious I did not approach
her. My mind muddled over the matter for
a year. In May of this year I returned
to the conference. After signing in I
went upstairs and sat down. The first
person I had a long talk with happened to be the 80+ year old mother of the
lady I had seen the year before. She
informed me of the details of her life and her daughters and all I had to do is
listen. That was another time I
had asked the Lord to open my understanding and he did. The Bible verse that says, “You have not,
because you ask not.” has taken on new meaning for me.
It may mean nothing but my circles seem to be getting smaller and quicker. On May 5th I went to the Indiana
State Gourd show for the first time. I
make crafts from gourds and have started growing my own. At the state show I saw a neat looking and
very large gourd and did not think at the time to ask who made it. On my way to the writing conference in
Ridgecrest, NC I decided to stop by the Kentucky State Gourd show on the
way. Several people I met in Indiana
were at the Kentucky Show. One was the Indiana secretary. She told me the story of the gourd and then
pointed out a man in the crowd. He was the one who had made it several years
before. I wanted the information because
I hope to write an article about it. So
that circle was finished in less than a month.
All this got me to pondering the meaning of it all. That was when I realized the fifty year cycle
for me. The 50th year of Jubilee is very significant in the
Bible. It signifies the beginning and
ending of time. One of the reasons I did
ponder so hard was that the keynote speaker told a story about a man who laid
hands on him when he was a kid. The experience had never left him. It made
me ponder a man in my own home town that I had not heard of or thought of since
leaving over fifty years ago. Today, well I guess in reality, yesterday I was
looking at Facebook and guess whose picture is on my time line. It was that old man that I thought of at the
conference. It is a strange coincidence,
but I could not get it out of my head and so here I sit. This brings me back to
the Biblical sequences of time.
If we go back to my opening statement. When the Jesus made the above statement he was
telling the Jewish people that they had reached a point where the Gentiles
would take over world affairs.
22For these be the days of
vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23But woe unto
them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there
shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24And they
shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all
nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times
of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
It is my belief that when Israel returned to the land in 1948 that
prophecy was fulfilled. Which also
remind me of the verse in 2nd Peter 3:8 where it says,
8 Dear friends, don’t forget that for the Lord one day is the same as a
thousand years, and a thousand years is the same as one day. 9 The Lord isn’t
slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is
patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.
Based on that logic we are entering the seventh day. Roughly two days
were before the flood. Two days were from the flood till Christ and two more
from Christ till now. So is it time to
enter the millennium and the Lord’s Day of Rest. I really do not know, but I feel I can now
lay down and sleep, having cleared my mind.
Like I said before I could die before I get out of this chair, but I
believe I will be here when the Lord returns in power and glory and I am
getting the feeling by looking around me that, that time is not that far off.
There is a verse in Luke 9:62 that says to never look back when you have put your hand to the plow. The reason is really simple. In the course of life we travel in the circles and seasons of life and sooner or later we come back to where we started. We can then see the crookedness of our paths and hopefully correct them as we move on in life.
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