The Zero Hour

I had a haunting thought last night: what the heck am I waiting for? Doesn’t it seem that we’re always waiting for the right moment, the right circumstances for something to blow open that would force us into a reaction?

It’s like we keep talking about doing something and that’s the extent of it– we talk about it. Shoot, we talk about getting back into church, but only when our lives get some semblance of normalcy; we discuss reading the Bible, but when we’re less tired. We talk about losing more weight and about getting healthy, but only after we had our next last hotdog.

What the heck are we waiting for? The more you think about it, the more mysterious and elusive this “thing” we’re waiting for actually becomes. It fills us with delusions and pushes us further along to a place where we never intended, living into circumstances we never dreamed of.

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. – John 4:23

Jesus stops his journey to intervene into the life of a woman experiencing the absolute futility of waiting for an opportunity. She has no idea what she is waiting around for. She’s been waiting for something to happen in her life for so long she forgotten what an opportunity actually looked like.

It was like she forgot why the heck she was even living! Let me describe her social situation: she was subject to prejudice for being of mixed races and to further that inequity, she was outcast for her past decisions. She was out of ideas because she was trapped in a corner and held hostage by her own life circumstances.

This is how we feel about our jobs, families and even unavoidably awkward social situations, isn’t it? It’s suffocating!

Jesus comes to intervene in our lives in these moments of lost-ness because it is zero hour; it is time for action and seize life as God intended for us. If we’re waiting for the perfect moment to get out in order, we’ll never get it together.

If we’re hoping that our past actions will somehow fix our future, we’re deeply mistaken. If we’re looking for an opportunity after we are established, we will never get around to doing anything. The moments we have been waiting for are moments at the well, meeting the unexpected guest. When we start drawing water with our hands to give drink to somebody other than ourselves that we begin to find the spirit in which we need to live. Worship to God happens when we throw our buckets down a deep well– that is, when we do what we would normally only do for ourselves and do it for somebody who can’t.

God has always been looking for you to make this moment zero hour. God is interrupting your ordinary to make for an extraordinary experience. He does this to give you a taste of real worship.

He does this to fill you with a power to influence change in people’s lives. Your zero hour is now. Jump at a powerful chance in breaking open God’s circumstances in your life.

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