Time Is Ticking Away – Stay Prepared Through The Holy Spirit!
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ (Ephesians 6:12)
On the first Sunday in November (2 November this year), we Floridians will be back on Eastern Standard Time (EST), switching from Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). This means two things; first, our Federal Congress has not yet passed the proposal (passed years ago by the Florida State Congress) to allow Florida to stay on Eastern Daylight Time year-round; and second, we will have the darkness of night settling in at about 5:30 PM which, in my humble opinion, is ridiculous here in the Sunshine State of Florida.
With our bodies attuned to EDT as EST starts, we’ll wake up at roughly 6AM and see the morning’s light coming through the windows, which is even more ridiculous than having the evening starting in what should be the middle of the afternoon.
However, we will adjust and sometime in March or April next year we will lose an hour of sleep, yet again – a greater, extremely seriously ridiculous scenario – as we get back on the ‘correct’ time schedule of EDT. (I like my sleep, and I like it to be in the dark.)
Time is the fourth dimension; we have height, width, and depth as our first 3 dimensions. To plot a satellite’s course (called its ephemeris data, for those who like trivia) you need its altitude, longitude, latitude, and time. (The 5th Dimension, an R&B group in the ‘60s who sang ‘The Age of Aquarius’, doesn’t officially count in this scenario.)
According to the Unified Force and Sub-atomic String theories of quantum physics, there may be up to twenty dimensions existing in the universe, in order to get these theories to ‘work’. We as humans can only comprehend the four dimensions we live in, but what of the other sixteen (or more) that may exist?
Our physical bodies only comprehend the three that it detects through the senses, and our minds can only comprehend the concept of the fourth one of time through the movement of objects, or of the earth’s daily rotation and annual revolution around the sun.
We don’t see air or gasses, but we can feel or smell them. There are other things we cannot detect at all unless we have the instrumentation devices to do so (such as CO2 detectors, for example), or through mental comprehension or physical senses, such as electromagnetic waves which cause our hair to stand up on our arms.
We know from practical applications we use daily that they exist, as our phones and wireless laptops couldn’t communicate without them. So there are things we know exist even though we can’t see them or necessarily comprehend them (like a good reason to change the clocks twice a year that screw up the sleep and function of our bodies).
We have a third form to detect that which we don’t fully comprehend or sense, the Spiritual form. Where is Heaven, or Hell? They are places that exist on the Spiritual plane, and our Triune God transcends them all. This is why our perception of time is irrelevant in the eyes of God, and why he is in all times all the time all at once in every place.
Perhaps this is that ‘sixth sense’, the ‘Spiderman’ tingle or premonition we sometimes get; it is the Holy Spirit giving us a head’s up to prepare us. We often overlook the Holy Spirit, and put too much into what we see when we should put more stock into what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us.
Like a muscle, we must exercise our connection with the Holy Spirit, through prayer, the study of God’s Word, obeying God’s Word, and having some time set aside just to listen for what God is trying to communicate to us.
We must prepare continually to do battle against the evil that surrounds us. Paul in Ephesians 6 tells us this, to place the ‘Armor of God’ over us to protect and defeat evil and to stay in Righteousness. It is similar to my mantra, even in the waning days of hurricane season, to ‘BE PREPARED, BE AWARE, & PLAN ACCORDINGLY’.
This call to prepare, stay aware, and plan is to do so physically (stock up on food, water, and toilet paper) and mentally (anticipate possible hardships). but we also must be prepared, aware, and be planning Spiritually by following God’s instructions and be ready to obey what it is He calls us to do.
Don’t let the little things (like the time change or our Congress failing to do the little things, like avoiding a shutdown or approve perpetual EDT) throw you for a loop; be in tune in all three phases of your life – what you can see (physical), what you can comprehend (mental), and what you can sense (Spiritual).
God knows what is going to happen as He has already seen it happen, so trust Him to guide us – His children – through the obstacles evil will try to throw up to block us.
