Text: Vesa Kum­pu­la

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

We were le­a­ving on a trip. It was al­re­a­dy late on Sun­day eve­ning, and our son, who usu­al­ly just drops in brief­ly, kept sit­ting in our home. Fi­nal­ly, I had to go out to take our bags in­to the car. Unex­pec­ted­ly, the boy came out with me and be­gan to share his thoughts. He felt at­t­rac­ted to a girl, but was not cer­tain about his own fee­lings, nor the girl’s fee­lings. I en­cou­ra­ged him to con­tact the girl and to ask her if she would like to le­arn to know him bet­ter.

That Sun­day eve­ning we drove a few hund­red ki­lo­me­ters to the home of our daugh­ter’s fa­mi­ly. In the ear­ly mor­ning hours my son cal­led and told me he had tal­ked to the girl. She had as­ked him to give her two weeks to con­si­der this qu­es­ti­on. Some time la­ter we were in­vi­ted to at­tend this yo­ung coup­le’s wed­ding.

One Sa­tur­day eve­ning I was lis­te­ning to ser­vi­ces. The spe­a­ker tal­ked about the king who had or­de­red all his ad­vi­sers to be kil­led. The re­a­son was that they were not ab­le to say what kind of a dream the king had had. A comp­le­te­ly im­pos­sib­le task! Da­niel and his three friends were among the ad­vi­sers. When Da­niel he­ard about the king’s or­der, he as­ked to be al­lo­wed to see him. First of all, he said to the king that if he gave them some time, he would be ab­le to desc­ri­be and exp­lain the king’s dream. The king al­lo­wed him some time. Da­niel told his friends this, and they pra­yed that God would help them. That al­so hap­pe­ned.

I be­lie­ve there are many si­tu­a­ti­ons in our li­ves where we need time to find a good so­lu­ti­on. When we ex­pe­rien­ce so­met­hing new, we need time to get used to it. We al­so need friends with whom we can share our thoughts and dis­cuss mat­ters.

I on­ce dis­cus­sed work life with a friend who is a doc­tor. In his work he meets pa­tients whom he can on­ly give bad news. I as­ked him how he feels about those si­tu­a­ti­ons. His res­pon­se was surp­ri­sing: he said he thinks that God is gi­ving those pa­tients time to set­t­le their mat­ters. Ma­y­be they can use well the time they are gi­ven. God may give un­be­lie­ving pa­tients time for se­arc­hing and a pos­si­bi­li­ty to re­cei­ve the grace of re­pen­tan­ce.

When God cal­ls a per­son in­to His king­dom, they should not ask for time to con­si­der the qu­es­ti­on. The Bib­le con­tains many re­fe­ren­ces to this. The Let­ter to the Heb­rews en­cou­ra­ges us not to har­den our he­arts when we hear God’s call (Heb. 3:15). In Chap­ter 12 of Ec­c­le­si­as­tes, we read words that make us pau­se: ”Re­mem­ber yo­ur Cre­a­tor in the days of yo­ur yo­uth, be­fo­re the days of troub­le come and the ye­ars ap­p­ro­ach when you will say, ‘I find no ple­a­su­re in them’”.

Do you have time? This qu­es­ti­on is al­wa­ys to­pi­cal. We could ask that more of­ten than we usu­al­ly do. It would be a way to show to our neigh­bors that they are im­por­tant and that we would be wil­ling to share our joys and sor­rows with them. I on­ce tal­ked to a per­son on the phone. Being my nor­mal busy self, I was about to end the call when that per­son said so­met­hing to stop me:

– Don’t you ever have time? Af­ter that, I had all the time in the world, and we dis­cus­sed the mat­ters that this per­son had on his he­art right then.

Don’t you ever have time? I gu­ess none of us would like to hear that qu­es­ti­on. We would rat­her like to hear so­me­o­ne say, ”It was nice you stop­ped to talk to me and gave me yo­ur time.”