Time Has Not Yet Come--But it will.

"Woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My hour has not yet come." John 2: 4

     As we continue to find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, I have found myself searching and looking for Jesus' face. For me, it has felt challenging at times to feel close to Jesus. It's so hard to know His place in the time of COVID-19, tornadoes, hail, crazy weather, children not being fed, people losing their jobs, and just a COMPLETE UPHEAVAL of life as we know it.  Yet the Earth-- how God began His creation is thriving. It's taking a deep breath. 

As I reflect on the history of His creation, I think of all the bad that has happened throughout Biblical scripture. I think of the land that Jesus walked on and the people He encountered. I reflect on the time that He was teaching and traveling with His disciples and the nature of the world then. It feels so heavy to us now. I keep hearing that this is a world that we haven't known. It's easy for us as middle class people of the modern world to say this. However, there are people living in our world, who before COVID-19 were starving, suffering, abused, trafficked, ill, dying alone, addicted, oppressed. 

Okay, we can all say that we weren't in a SUPER great place before all this started. 

However, through this more and more people are being helped. I know that more are also suffering, but we have to be able to see some of the good. People are recovering, families are being brought back to the table, back outside, back together. I know that there's so much negative happening as well, but maybe God is calling us to find the good. 

Today, there were protests in Michigan because people are unhappy about the stay at home orders of our governor. (This will not be a political post!)

The natives are getting restless. Life feels OVERWHELMING! I. GET. IT. Hi, I'm at home with 2 two year old boys and a 5 year old. I'm needed by 3 people all day long from 6am-8pm and sometimes in the middle of the night. I am 1 person. 

It's absolutely so so hard for every single person in the world. In a different personal way for that person. Everyone has a story. It doesn't mean one is suffering greater than you, or less than you. It's okay to sit in the sadness. It's okay to LAMENT. It's absolutely okay to be devastated. It is hard. 

We are just completely and utterly beat down with constant intake of information, of changes, of arguing, bickering, and things have taken a turn in the last week or 2 with more and more rhetoric of conspiracies and tyranny. 

It's all too much. 

In reflecting and praying today, I was reminded of the Disciples speaking to Jesus, and HIS OWN MOTHER speaking to Him about knowing what He can do. They knew that He could perform miracles. They knew that He had the power to make the world better. To save His people of oppression. and yet, as the scripture at the top of this post, when Mary, speaks to Jesus at the wedding of her dear friends knowing that they were about to run out of wine. He responds that "my hour has not yet come". 

In John 7-- Jesus's brothers said to him, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers did not believe in him. 

Therefore, Jesus told them, "My time is not yet here; for you and time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival because my time has not yet fully come." 

Jesus, knowing full well His capacity and His power, waited. He waited for the word of HIs father. Who are we. We cry out, we expect an answer. Some of us don't cry out, because you say "how could any good God let any of this happen" (this is a different topic for a different time, but long story short, it's not necessarily from God! But it feels easy to blame Him, when you don't know Him, or even if you do for some people!) 

We are being asked to wait. WE JUST HAVE TO WAIT! We don't get to understand why. We just have to hope. We have to have FAITH. That's all we get. It's all we have. We may not get to know. 

We have to wait. We have to BE STILL, and we have to follow Him, as he says "FOLLOW ME". 

In this time, where we feel overwhelmed and exhausted and full to the brim of unknowns. I hope that we can hear and trust God that "my time is not yet here", and that His timing is perfect. It's absolutely so hard to see Jesus when it feels like you're staring into the face of death, unknown, loss, overwhelm, anxiety, depression, and power of government and not even knowing what to believe anymore. 

I pray that we turn our faces up, that we do good, that we FOLLOW HIM, and know that we have to trust that "my time has not yet come", but that it will.