Communication
My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. Psalm 31:15 NASB
Times– The obvious personal application question here is this one: Are your times in God’s hand? Maybe we should expand this a bit. Is your emotional wellbeing, your sense of personal safety, your reliance on physical sustenance, your interaction with others—are those things under God’s hand? Are the ups and downs of living on this vulnerable world still under God’s covering? Or are you subject to circumstances, blown over by bad news, mortified when someone you trusted fails you, scared to reach out for fear of rejection? Where is the God you serve in a life like that?
Some deeper examination of this odd little Hebrew word reveals more. The word is ʿēt, Hebrew for “time.” But Hebrew doesn’t have an abstract concept of time like the Greeks. Time in Hebrew is always experienced and practical. We can see this when we realize that ʿēt is derived from ʿānâ and ʿānâ is a verb about conversation. It means, “to answer, to respond, to testify, to speak, to shout.” In other words, Hebrew conceives of time as a function of communication. There are no mysterious mathematical alternative universes, branching possibilities, or extemporal observation points. Time occurs wherever beings are in conversation. This means that “time” for humanity is a measure of its conversation with God. Where there is no conversation by either party, time ceases to exist.
Perhaps we now have a deeper understanding of shamar. Why does the same word mean both “to hear” and “to obey”? Could it be that conversation (hearing) has no real existence until it accomplishes its purpose (obedience)? Perhaps in Hebrew the real meaning of a word isn’t expressed until that word turns into action. Therefore, a word like ʿēt doesn’t really signify anything until it becomes a marker of action, in this case, the act of David putting all of his life under God’s control and protection.
Back to our personal application. It seems that we are quick to claim God’s sovereignty (and our reliance) with the physical side of existence. We pray for peace, prosperity and protection when it comes to money, jobs, shelter, food and the other basics (?) of life. But how many of us put our emotional wellbeing in God’s hands? How many of us actually turn over the battleground of emotional trauma, rejection, injury and fear to God and God alone? Don’t we rather act as if God is in charge of all those things we can see, touch and taste, but our private emotional lives are still outside His care? When David says, “My times are in Your hand,” he isn’t limiting the conversation to the external world. He is declaring that his personal, internal, private conversation is also intimately connected with God. He is expressing what it means to be human rather than homo sapien. God-talk is at the foundation of temporal existence.
Topical Index: ʿēt, time, emotions, conversation, Psalm 31:15
Hello, as I began reading this post I did not realize what time it was. The thought that came to mind was this period in the days of Noah, or in the days of Abraham, does this equal in the time of Noah, or in the time of Abraham,? I think so these writings are here for us to learn from the time of Noah, or the time of Abraham. Let’s see how this and up. I need to go now.
Shalom. B. B
i have come to suspect that existence itself is a collective phenomenon for EVERYTHING.
Evolution is all about a mysterious beginning that takes such a huge amount of faith to believe I cannot conjure up enough faith to believe it, but it takes even more faith to believe that things made themselves and perpetuate themselves and uphold themselves all by themselves. Too much faith for me!
A cooperative web of life is more like it, I believe, and science is truly starting to confirm this. Intelligent design is certainly the case, as things devolve, not evolve, and energy runs down, not up, too. It all started from higher up and its all been downhill from there.
Nothing lives in isolation. Nothing can even be identified as ‘itself’ in isolation, either. It is not such a great stretch to see that it is probable that nothing LIVES in isolation, either. The web cooperates because it shares a collective life between itself, and all is dependent upon an upstream Source for that connection of life, for life IS how it all connects. I have wondered what exactly is “the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3), and am suspicious that the Word itself is Life, breathed continually into the creation that is being upheld. Love is life is connection, and choice is about being in the image of the Life Giver, for choice is where we can voluntarily choose to stay connected – alive – (or not). I am present in time to the extent that I am connected, for time is how we count the days of our life; or, connection with that Life. All the flesh can do, however, is mark time. Life is reserved for those who have been reborn into it.
Time, then, is defined, for us living creatures, anyway, as a derivative of that cooperative dance of connections between creation and the Creator, where the life in which time functions (nope, I did not say that backwards; I meant it that way) is all about the totality of the existence of the entire nephesh. All of me must dance if any of me is going to.
Life is a collective phenomenon within as well as without, and there is no such thing as trying to separate one facet of existence from any of the others. Salvation is about our entire nephesh, too, as the great Healer demonstrated when.He healed AND commanded “sin no more”, so we can trust that He meant all of us to be reborn – remade in His image. If my entire life does not reflect Him, then He is not present at all, for He wants to change everything, which means everything must be submitted to Him to be revamped. Time to house clean!
Laurita, Good to see you add yet another hat to your manifold collection. Teacher, Healer, Theologian, Philosopher, Community Organizer, Commentator, Comforter, Author, Friend, Mother, Wife and now Physicist. Good job.
Michael, you make a great cheerleader, and I humbly appreciate it more than you know, but I appreciate you (and Arnella) more.
Of the above list, because I have tried – and failed – (and a lot of it failed before I even tried); I, more than anybody, know just how I am not qualified to wear any hats at all except “redeemed”. And if any real physicist reads the above, they will probably get a good laugh (I hope they do), because my focus is on something else: my focus is to bring the glory to God that is His.
If you see anything, it is because my mess has been redeemed in that area. My road to hell paved with best efforts got a new paving job, and I got turned around on it going the opposite direction, too. Halleluah!
My earnest desire is that the transformation others see in me gets caught like a good infection. The good news is, if my mess can be transformed, anybody’s can! And that is my prayer for you and all. All the glory goes to Him Who loved me and gave Himself for me first. Amen.
This word really does provoke a lot of thought. Coming from a “Spirit-filled” background it is easy, at least, it seemed easy to think I had something I really in actuality didn’t own/ possess. I saw something I wanted and was told I had it, but once again in order to have it I had to be a partaker, which requires obedience. That very thing which seems so difficult for us. We want something, that God has offered us but we really don’t want to do that which is necessary in order to take possession ! We can have fantasies or we can be involved in making reality by application. It’s a whole struggle of works/performance. How do I engage with God and receive what I so desperately desire? Is he waiting on me to make the next move?
I can be dissatisfied in my walk with God and blame him for a lack of fulfillment/ realization when in truth I have not done what is necessary. Always looking for short cuts/freebies! The children of Israel could have sat outside the promised land fantasizing about what it would be like but never have the actualization because they didn’t follow the directive to enter and take possession. So, Skip, your words “to hear” and “to obey” have great significance to me.
Also, the word comes to me this morning out of psalms where David said “oh taste and see that the Lord is good”. In order to taste I have to do something. I have to take a bite. Then begins the process of becoming me. As they say, “we are what we eat“. The word becoming flesh.
The power of the word which we take in and digest becomes a part of us thereby transforming us. This may not make a lot of sense and that’s OK, I’m just processing out loud. Trying to “get it“. In all you’re getting, get understanding ….
Wow
This paragraph right here really spoke to me, I’ve been meditating on all day. Thank you for this Skip… “But how many of us put our emotional wellbeing in God’s hands? How many of us actually turn over the battleground of emotional trauma, rejection, injury and fear to God and God alone? Don’t we rather act as if God is in charge of all those things we can see, touch and taste, but our private emotional lives are still outside His care?”
God also wants us to be His representative so that we can “share one another’s burdens”, So we need to be trustworthy.
I have a friend in the Apartment house I live in, who has extreme anxiety. When I’m in the apartment I never know when he will knock on the door.needing to talk. There are times I have no idea how to answer his questions. Except to assure him of God’s presence. His mind just ‘can’t let go and let God’ until we’ve talked it out. All of a sudden his face changes to a smile he gives me a hug and off he goes until the next time. It’s not what I say, but just the fact that I listen to him. His is an extreme case but we are all like him to a lesser degree. We certainly need God–#1,but we also need and to trust each other. Shalom