Another Day, Another Time

It has been repeatedly suggested I am a man born out of time. Most of the music I know and love predates the 1800s. The books (and clothes) I prefer hail from Victorian England. My vocabulary occasionally defaults to something Shakespearean (as a seminary friend will never let me live down). I write better with quill and ink than I do a ball-point pen. And every so often, I develop a fondness for people like the Puritans and the Scrooby Pilgrims.

Other people feel the same way about other places in time. Many frequently long for periods as diverse as the Middle Ages and the 1950s. Some wish to return to days before the West was won. Still others, like those of the transhumanist movement, believe they were born too soon rather than too late and would prefer a setting which currently exists only in science fiction.

To all of us whose hearts may belong elsewhen (as opposed to elsewhere), I have two words of advice. You may want to write these down, as they can be confusing. Ready? Here you go, two words: stop it. We live now, here, in these times with these people and these circumstances. This isn't arbitrary, either; God in His sovereignty put us when and where we are for specific purposes, to accomplish specific things only we can do only in this moment. In the book of Esther, Mordecai sends his message to the new queen: "Who knows but that you have come to power for such a time as this?" (4:14). God put us here for such a time as this.

It may be hard. We may sometimes wish things different, that we didn't face such obstacles or have to cope with certain facts of 21st-century life. Regardless, we are here. God placed us here because we're needed for such a time as this. Let us take our place in 2016 and do what God put us here to do.