Learn to Mark Time God's Way

Learn to Mark Time God's Way
By: Tommy Tenney (Author of Books: God Chasers, God Catchers and many more)

{This is for the worshiper in you}

Children don't measure the passage of time the way we do. For a little baby, thirty seconds away from Mommy can seem like eternity. The older we get, the easier it becomes for us to handle separation from our parents-and from God's presence. It just gets harder to recover the "joy of encounter" with Him (The God Catchers, p. 181).

As the father of three beautiful daughters, I consider myself one of the most blessed men on the planet. Yet I dread the very day most anticipated by each of my daughters. Each one of them dreams of the day their daddy gives them away in marriage, but there is a part of Daddy that doesn't want to "give away" any of them. If I live to be one hundred and twenty years old, those girls will always be my babies; and I'll never get enough of warm embraces and happy faces. I have the feeling that our heavenly Father feels the same frustration about our so-called "growing up" process. If I understand the biblical view on this, we are to grow wiser and more mature in our understanding of God's workings with men while remaining totally childlike in our relationship with Him.

Do you get the feeling that some people want to "hurry up and grow up" so they can move out of God's house and live on their own? How do you see it-does the heavenly Father really enjoy His intimate moments with you and others like you? Are you becoming more like a child in His presence or more like an independent adult who feels able to function freely apart from His nearness without a feeling of loss or emptiness?

Have you ever walked into an old family home to look for "growth notes" on the door frames? They are more common than you might believe. Long before the days of colorful preprinted "growth charts," parents used to call their children in on a monthly or yearly basis to stand by a closet door frame. With pencil in hand, they would carefully look across the top of each child's head to mark their height in feet and inches on the frame and place their name and the date beside each mark.

It was only natural for each child to stretch upward toward the highest mark they could reach to proudly demonstrate to Mom and Dad just how much they'd grown since the last measuring. As the years went by, the marks on the door frame crept upward past the door latch to the four-foot mark, then to four-and-a-half feet, five feet, and beyond. Observant visitors can see an entire family growth history displayed on a single door frame if they look for it.

I read somewhere that the apostle Paul also kept track of his progress with a mark. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Are you pressing toward a mark to demonstrate your maturity for the benefit of men, or do you press upward for the mark of a higher call by drawing closer to the Father and by embracing His purposes?

I've learned something in the last few years about the spiritual growth measurement. As I said in The God Catchers, "God Chasers become God Catchers when they begin to measure time in terms of absences from His manifest presence" (p. 180).

When you play hide-and-seek with a toddler, you could hide in the same place every time and still see the same incredible joy spread over his face when he finds you in your "hiding place." My daughters used to act as if they hadn't seen me in two weeks, even though I'd been hiding only two minutes. Why? Children do not measure time by the ticks of a clock or the forward progress of clock hands or dials. They measure time in terms of absences: "How long has it been since I held my mommy?" (The God Catchers, p. 181)

The object of maturity is to become productive, dependable, and equipped to pass on the family heritage to the new generations that will follow. The object of God Chasing-and our eternal relationship with God-is to become more dependent upon His grace and more addicted to His presence. Perhaps John the Baptist best described the Christian's proper life goal when he told his disciples, "He must increase, but I must decrease." This apparent dichotomy of purpose isn't new to God's kingdom. His Word also commands us to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

How are you managing the dual growth process of the Christian life? Are you growing in Christian maturity for the work of the ministry while becoming more childlike with each God encounter? Have you noticed that some of the greatest leaders in the church exhibit a childlike quality when they speak of Him? (Wouldn't it be nice if they all did?)

The moment He comes, the instant the Object of our worship comes, we latch on to His glory and press into His presence. We forget to say "bye" to the day's routines, and we often abandon our friendships and break our conversations mid-sentence to exclaim in breathless joy, "It's Him!" (The God Catchers, p. 183)

What Do You Think?

Children don't measure the passage of time the way we do. For a little baby, 30 seconds away from Mommy can seem like eternity. The older we get, the easier it gets for us to handle separation from our parents-and from God's presence. It just gets harder to recover the "joy of encounter" with Him (page 181).

1. What do you think? Describes ways that you have grown "separate" from God:

2. It may be harder to recover the joy of encounter, but how committed are you to try?

Scripture Reading: John 3:30 and Philippians 3:13-14, in which a prophet and an apostle show us how to tell time and mark our spiritual progress.

30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

The New King James Version, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1998, c1982.





Prayer

Father, no matter how mature I become in Your grace, keep me childlike and tender before Your face. I have far to go in the maturity race, but my first priority is to increase my pace to see Your face once more. All I know is that I need You, I want You, I am compelled to pursue Your presence with all of the passion in my soul. I just want You, Daddy.