I remember the times when the spring calves penned up because of the damp and cold were finally turned loose into the pasture would run around and jump with and exuberance that was contagious. I could not see that sight and not feel their sense of freedom and general aspect of joy at the amazement of being not only free, but alive.
There is an amazing image from the Book of Malachi the 4th chapter – “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” A careful reading of the text brings us up short however. “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” 2“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”
I am reminded that so much of our life is focused on the here and now, the immediate and the work a day world that we forget that we are living in God’s time. Christ has brought in the fulfillment of God’s promises and the life we live now in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. At the end of the age we shall see Him as He is both as Judge and Redeemer. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is”.…1 John 3.
Living in God’s time means that we are free to exuberantly skip out of confinement of sin and death and the devil and be God’s people loosed on the world that God loves. The jarring notes of these texts about the wicked and those ho don’t know God should move us on to mission and mercy and proclaiming the will of God. Instead of spending our time and energy worrying about the hidden will of God we can focus on His reveled will – 39“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6
