The Lighthouse Devotional
Author: Heather Barker
“Set Time”
SCRIPTURE VERSE
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4 NIV).
PERSONAL REFLECTION
When I first read this verse, the word “time”jumped out at me. Time has been on the minds of many during the COVID-19 pandemic. How long will it last? When will life return to normal?
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
In Galatians 4:4, the writer qualifies the word “time” with an adjective: set time, right time, appointed time, depending on the Bible version. These adjectives lead me to ponder God’s sovereignty and plan. The “set time” spoken of here is the coming of Jesus Christ. In Galatians 3 and 4, a central theme is man’s freedom from the Law and the world’s powers, through faith in Jesus Christ. But we may wonder: Why did Christ come at the time He did? Why did God choose this time, and not another?
We see a parallel in Luke 1:20 when Gabriel speaks to Zechariah about John the Baptist: “And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
Both Scripture texts remind us that God is the creator of time, that we are subject to it, and are often ignorant of its scope. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says: “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (NLT).
While we may be unclear about God’s “set time” in our lives, we can understand, by faith, that His “set time” is the right time. God knows the bigger picture and has depth perspective. We do not.
EXHORTATION
How can we apply Galatians 4:4? First, we can surrender (often repeatedly) to a truth, made more apparent in the last year and a half, that we are not in control of time. We can seek to cooperate with God as He brings His plans to fruition at the set time. We can learn what God is teaching us while we wait for our own “set time.”
PRAYER
Father in heaven, author of time, help us to see time as a gift, even the set times which we often don’t understand. Help us to see the bigger picture. We thank you for sending your Son to deliver us from the Law by faith in Him alone. May we make wiser use of the time that you have given us. In the name of Jesus, we pray, Amen.