Please hold…

Uncle Paul calls you on the phone and tells you about his wife who was just taken ill. You get distracted, and tell him to ‘hang on a sec.’ He says: ‘take your time.’ You were 18 at the time.

70 years later, after a life of job hopping, military tours, ups, downs, family duties, hobbies, and the common affairs of life,  you find yourself in a hospital bed; hardly unable to move your right hand, you notice the phone (the one with the cord) is off the hook, and struggle to put it back, but first you put it to your ear and say ‘hello?’

Of course the voice on the other end is uncle Paul who says: ‘I’m here, I waited for you.’ Of course the phone drops immediately to the floor. And in that moment of unannounced honesty but bitter and unvarnished truth, you saw the revelation of the patience of Almighty God which has been timeless and changeless. The brutal end of life was shown just as true as ‘in the beginning.’

But notice the kindness of uncle Paul as he said nothing of the lie when the young man said ‘just a sec.’ No, it was not ‘just a sec,’ it was a lifetime of poor manners, selfishness, busyness that had no time for an aunt’s welfare, and the quietness of the uncle to not bring up this behavior was louder than thunder.

God is not that uncle, no, much better even, but to put the creator ‘on hold’ as it were, as if time belonged to us, and to casually dismiss Him because of OUR cares of the world, what WE think is important, is kind of, well, not too smart. It probably would have been a good idea to spend a little time with the wise uncle so many years ago.

God’s time is not ours, and He is far far Far more patient than we can ever imagine. He is that good. But He does grant visions and dreams, things which speak to the eternal that we just may get back on track, so we do not have to wait 70 years before getting it right.

Things like this give context to ‘Jesus wept,’ at the aloofness of men, being saddled by distractions or lack of faith in the tangible and credible, which ignores the eternal truths found in the life and times of the perennial scent of a simple flower.

‘Yes, I’ll take that call, NOW.’