A Slow and Sudden God: 40 Years of Wonder

The number forty, I’m told, biblically symbolizes a period of testing. A trial, a season of waiting, a mystery, a wondering about what is next. Mentioned 146 times in Scripture, I’m told, the meaning could, I’m sure, vary. Moses isn’t here today for an interview, but I’d love to ask his take on forty years in Egypt and forty years in the desert. The number forty, for me, reveals survival in the quest of life while displaying passion and pain during that endeavor. … Life is, to me, a poem. A very long and very daunting and very charming poem. …life is brief and long. Life is laughter and tears. Life is a surgical procedure. Life is waiting and waiting and waiting then noticing the something we waited for occurred unexpectedly right beside us while we stared out the window hoping to glance it from a distance. Life thrills us. Life scares us.

It is, I guess, a matter of time. My time. Your time. This time. Of forty years or forty days or forty words or forty letters. Time, which I’ve learned through these decades, really matters.

So, in the poem of your own life, notice now as one tiny giant that matters greatly in this rapid lane of time.