“We cannot, Lord, Thy purpose see, but all is well that’s done by
Thee.” –William Lister (1867)
"All your sins were future when Jesus died."
"All that will be is not now yet."
"Faith is being able to visualize as true and real already what God is
yet to do."
"Trusting God means looking beyond what we can see to what God sees."
The Lord Jesus Christ has used a simple timeline document to help me gain a
wide-angle view of life…a little glimpse of what it will be like when we step
out of time and into eternity and see the panorama of the past, the present, and
the future all-at-once…
Beginning at the beginning…
One way of doing this is begin to document a timeline of your life. I
have shared the first 10 years of my life timeline in the photo on this blog.
You can do it too. Take a look at your life in 10 year segments, asking God to
reveal to you all the spiritual mile markers in your life…broken places, hurts,
disappointments, accomplishments, and joyful times…to help you see that God had
been there all along…His name is Emmanuel—God with us…His grace is
sufficient.
To accomplish this task, I discovered a very helpful tool for a
“Timeline Template” through Microsoft. It’s free, and it’s very easy to use,
the text boxes expand to whatever size you need, and the arrows on the boxes
can be moved to any location on the timeline. You can duplicate the
timeline, and save as a new page for each decade of your life. The link for this
“Timeline Template” really helped me to get my thoughts on paper, and God has
used it to heal me in so many ways…
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/timeline-TC001016265.aspx
The Hebrew concept of time is like a person rowing a boat. We see where
we have been, we back into the future. I can clearly see that God has been
there with me all along. I am not stuck in the past, I am rowing into the
future, moving forward, proactive, with my focus, my mindset, on God, who is
sovereign. He sees the past, the present, and the future all-at-once.
Morning after morning in my quiet time, I bring myself back to the
Cross of Christ…as I bow before Him, I experience anew His forgiveness,
redemption, mercy, and grace, as I sense His blood dripping over the Crown of
Thorns pressed into His brow, onto my heart, covering my sin, and I get up from
my knees wearing His Robe of righteousness as I face the day ahead…rowing into
the future.
What are your thoughts?
In what ways might the Lord use
a timeline to help you gain a wide-angle view of life?
