“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.[b] That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”
– 2 Peter 3:8-13
It’s summertime. Almost. Well… officially next week… but school is out… and family schedules shift with soccer practice, baseball games, VBS, band camp, a vacation to see family or perhaps a weekend at the beach. When I was young… back in the 1960’s… summer lasted forever. Now… it’s over before it begins. Time tells its own tale and I was much older when I first stumbled on the words of Jesus’s disciple Peter when he wrote… “for God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day…” a good word to grasp hold of as it really has less to do with rolling out of time and more to do with the presence of God in our lives as that time rolls out with all it brings.
How’s your summer going so far?
I remember when I lived in New Orleans going to an Irish Pub in the French Quarter with some friends for some fellowship over a Reuben sandwich and an adult beverage or two. There was live music and one of the songs played that night caught my ear… a song known as “The Garden Song”… which then I only knew it by its first line… until recently I discovered it was written by John Denver… and that first verse?
Inch by inch, row by row…
we’re gonna make this garden grow.
All it takes is a rake and a hoe,
and a piece of fertile ground.
Inch by inch, row by row,
someone bless these seeds I sow…
Someone warm them from below,
‘till the rain comes tumblin’ down.
It’s got a snappy Gaelic tune and you can google it at your leisure and for some reason I’ve been singing this song in my head and heart a lot lately as its words have a ‘creation theology’ flare as God provides the ground for our very being… even warming the seeds which are planted as we wait for the rain… and maybe its been the rain we’ve been blessed with recently that has lifted this tune from my then to my now… Faith matters!
So the question to myself today is this… how patient can I be with God? How patient can I be with God’s people? People like me with whom I share similar values as well as those who don’t and worse… don’t seem to care? Certainly not as patient as God… that ‘someone’… and what does that mean for me? And does ‘inch by inch and row by row’ sound anything like ‘a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day?’ Perhaps … as I find hope in that… an important hope because I think the disciples believed Jesus would return in their lifetime… Peter even describing how the world would come to a certain end like modern scientists do today… but, there is a different kind of sameness as Jesus didn’t return in their lifetime and my lifetime is 2000 years later… yet I will go on living as if the Lord would return later today or tomorrow morning and continue on inch by inch and row by row… with God’s rake and hoe… my Bible, our prayers and some bread and wine…
