To Live and Accept Them As Is

12.28.13

Revelation 9.15 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. (ESV)

In the annals of Heaven appear our names. And in those annals right next to our name, appears the hour, the day, the month and the year of our birth… and our death. We were prepared for the very moment of coming and of going. We are known in Heaven.

In John’s vision (Revelation, chapter 9) he saw four angels who had been prepared for the very hour, day, month, and year to be released to go out and kill one third of mankind – or roughly two billion, two-hundred and thirty-three million people. Not sure how all of this is going to come about, but it will happen. (And it sounds like we can count on a two-hundred million man military force to boot.) And it will all come about at the hour, on the day, in the month, and in the year when the Annals of Heaven say it will.  

There is nothing of coincidence in our world – everything happens right on schedule when God has planned it. Probably one of the most universal reasons for man’s rebellion against God is that man has no control over his days or what happens to him during his days. And the most frustrating thing of all is the amount of time and energy that is spent in trying to control our days only to reach the inevitable conclusion that they are out of our control. That doesn’t sit well with control freaks; and billions and billions of us are incurably infected control freaks.

Not even angelic beings are given free-reign; they are controlled as well. Angelic frustration over a lack of control produces beings which, had they the opportunity, would unseat God from His throne. We men, in small ways, attempt to unseat God all the time. We make judgments, we lie, criticize, and manipulate. But the hour, the day, the month, and the year of our departure is fixed and there’s not one thing we can do to alter it. The humanic frustration of it all…

The closing words of Revelation 9 say: The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. Such is the selfish magnitude of men and their lust for control of the situation.

One lesson for me this morning is: let go and let God. I know, I say that all the time; and I don’t mean to be glib but that is what this passage of Scripture says to me: Paul you have no control over anything…except your attitude about it. My hours, days, months, and years have been laid out for me and I had no say-so in how they were to be, or what they were to be. By God’s help however, I am to live them as is, and accept them as is.

My prayer in the face of this then, is this: Father, today, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; give me courage to change the things I can; and allow me wisdom to know the difference that my days may be an offering to You of obedience and acceptance of Your power and presence therein – Amen.