Six Hours Ahead

I

 have always been a clock-watcher.  No matter where I am, no matter the circumstance, at least once during a conversation, a class, or a presentation of some kind, I will look at the clock just to get my chronological bearings.  My students are very used to this by now.  The first thing I do in class is place my watch on the table where I can see it and the last thing I do is check it before dismissing them.  In between, I glance at it several times just to make sure I’m on track and on the pace I’ve set for the class.

When I lived and studied in France for the first time, I became even more sensitive to the time both in France and back home in the United States.  I had a digital watch that displayed two different time zones so I always knew what everyone was doing back home.  While I was eating breakfast, they were sleeping.  When lunchtime came, they were just getting out of bed and as I lay down to sleep, they were sitting down to the dinner table.  We lived in the same moment of time, but we measured it differently.  No matter the day or the situation, while in France I was always 6 hours ahead of my family and friends at home.

This proved to be particularly important because my mom and dad would call on Saturdays around lunchtime.  For them, it was 6 a.m. but for me it was high noon.  It took me a while to grow accustomed to my parents telling me good morning when it was clearly afternoon where I was.  Eventually, however, I adjusted to the change and could go about my business without worrying too much as to what time it was half a world away.  I knew that if I needed my parents, I could call them, I just had to be sensitive to their time zone.

The writer of Psalm 46, however, didn’t worry about time zones.  He understood that God doesn’t carry a watch and that time is meaningless from His perspective.  We live in time, God lives outside of it.  For us the clock is always moving forward and for our Heavenly Father it is always now.  This idea is reflected in the opening verse of this psalm.  In Psalm 46:1, the writer tells us, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

Two words in this verse leap off the page at me, “trouble” and “ever-present.”  First, let’s consider this notion of trouble.  We usually understand this word to mean something bad has happened in our lives.  However, trouble can also mean we are in a difficult place, facing challenging circumstances.  For example, we may experience a difficult illness, we may find ourselves with an emotional crisis we didn’t see coming, or we may be backed into a corner where we must learn to trust God with our situation.  None of these situations is a result of something we did; it’s just that life happens while we are living it.

This is where the word, “ever-present” comes into play.  God is always with us.  He constantly knows all that we are facing.  His eyes and ears are always attentive, always alert to His children, always aware of their situations and needs.  While the Scriptures tell us God knows the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning and that He is all-knowing, they reassure us that God does not leave us and is not six hours away from us.  No, He is very near, as close as our heartbeat.  Whatever the circumstances are, whatever the situation, God is always present, ready to help us in our time of need, caring for us and doing for us those things we cannot do for ourselves.

What time is it where you are today?  Rest assured that no matter what the clock on the wall or the watch on your wrist says, God’s clock always reads right now!