The Time Has Come

I love seeing towns that have clocks located in the downtown areas. Recently, I was able to see two different clocks, one in West Jefferson and one in Black Mountain. The beauty of the clock is that they remind us of time. The clock tells the precise moment. The clock reminds that a day is nearing its completion, that each passing second can never be reclaimed. Many people pass by the clocks without even noticing anymore, their time kept by their phone or their watch. Just the same as we pass by these clocks day by day, we neglect the moment we are in just as frequently.

One of my favorite sayings comes from Horace's Odes - "Carpe Diem". Its meaning is to seize the day, to take hold of the moment. So often, we are living in a moment that will come ten years from now or a moment that happened ten years ago, neglecting the present moment, the gift of God that is the breath we have just taken. The danger of living solely in the past is that we are holding on to that which cannot be changed. The trouble with living for what we are going to do ten years from now is that ten years from now is not guaranteed. What we have is this moment and eternity, so we ask the question "What are we doing right now?"

If you know anything about me, you know my love for Christmas. We are roughly four months away from Christmas, but I am already in the spirit! As I saw those clocks recently, I thought about a verse in Luke, one that comes in the midst of the story of the birth of Christ, a verse that speaks of a moment when everything changed. Luke wrote, "While they were there, the time came for her to give birth." (Luke 2:6 HCSB) Mary and Joseph had gotten to the place where Scripture said that Jesus would be born, Bethlehem, and the time had come. The moment changed everything then, and continues to change everything now.

The time has come for your life as well. As I weigh what tomorrow will bring, I am reminded that this moment is what I have and this moment has come for a reason. You, too, have this moment to do something, to reach for something greater, to achieve something that you thought was unattainable. Walking through life without thinking about the moment we are in is a life that finds great waste and regret at its conclusion. God has given you this moment for a reason and has placed you where you are for a reason. He has equipped us and now, the time has come to do something, to recognize what could be and make it happen.

On a night in Bethlehem, God came in the form of Christ the Son at the precise moment that He had chosen for such a monumental moment. Everything had led up to that moment. The moment had been chosen and at that moment, it happened. Everything in our lives has led to this moment and now,