Each morning, I awake with a writing prompt on my mind. I asked for this, and I believe this is God’s answer to my prayer. Every day. A word, premise, memory, crucial next step, or even a question.
“How Long?” kept burbling through my mind, and with each morning routine step behind me, this question kept erupting my brain cells to do some research.
How Long? Like the question, "Are we there yet?" we may not know until the last moment of time the answer to the question, How Long Until…" Click To TweetI know retirement is in the future, but what does that look like? At this stage of life, I’m unsure. What will be my last day of work? Of course, pastoring is not work. It’s a calling. I quit getting a paycheck a long time back, but I do enjoy committing my time to writing – so how does this question come into play?
I flipped through the search engine in my bible software, turned to my latest reading translation, and entered this phrase: “How Long?” (Without the question mark, of course!) 53 occurrences where a man asked God, and God asked of a man. How Long?
It was a startling revelation. The question covered the gambit of interest, sin, and even direction.
So, me being me, I turned to Bing Chat with GPT-4 and asked: “Write me a poem asking the question “How Long?” Notice I didn’t ask AI to answer the question! Here’s what Bing created in about 4 seconds.
Here is a poem I wrote for you, asking the question “How Long”:
How long will the sun keep shining bright?
How long will the moon light up the night?
How long will the stars twinkle in the sky?
How long will the earth keep spinning by?
How long will the seasons change and flow?
How long will the rivers run and grow?
How long will the mountains stand so tall?
How long will the forests breathe for all?
How long will the humans live and love?
How long will the animals roam and rove?
How long will the flowers bloom and fade?
How long will the memories be made?
How long is a question hard to answer
How long is a mystery and a wonder
How long is a moment and a lifetime
How long is a poem and a rhyme
As I narrowed my question, I asked AI to tell me how long it will be until life returns to normal. Perhaps it was my poor questioning, or AI’s answer was a game changer. All I could get out of it revolved around the pandemic. Even artificial intelligence realized normal life had been upset by a virus.
I generalized the question and began searching my Bible in earnest.
When asked how long it will be before the ending of the ages comes, Jesus says this:
“But of that day and hour no one knows,
not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.
(Matthew 24:36 NKJV)
When asked when He would restore Jerusalem, just before his ascension, Jesus stated:
And He said to them,
“It is not for you to know times or seasons
which the Father has put in His own authority.
(Acts 1:7 NKJV)
In each situation I study, the response keeps coming back. We don’t know the answer, nor can we surmise when the end will come, how long it will take until we return to normal, or whether it is a valid question. Like a kid asking constantly, “Are we there yet?”
Perhaps we should be rolling up our sleeves and creating the world around us so that we can answer the question to our own satisfaction. I may not know “how long?” but I won’t let that stop me. I have plans from God to keep “working” on until my last breath. My answer to the question is to stay alive, healthy, and focused on life moving forward so that the times keep improving.
In the book of Matthew, after making the statement recorded above, Jesus lays the foundation that I want my life to be lived like. Aware. Watchful. Hopeful. But still living as He’s called me to live.
But as the days of Noah were,
so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
For as in the days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day that Noah entered the ark,
and did not know until the flood came
and took them all away,
so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
(Matthew 24:37-39 NKJV)
The world around Noah did not know, though he was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), the world kept turning around, and life went on as normal. But Noah knew… Could it be he had an answer to “How Long?” Possibly. Could it have been a surprise? I think not. The ark is finished, the food is in the storehouse, and the animals have been loaded. What’s left? Noah, get your family together. It’s time to leave.
Maybe this is our hope. As with Noah, the signs will be there for us to note that it can’t be very long. Lanny Wolfe penned the words of a favored song, “Why do my feet feel so light today? As if they want to fly away. I wonder, what can it be?”
Maybe the answer to “How long?” is to keep our spirits aligned with God’s Will. We may have the answer to this question but can only sense it day by day. We need to keep testing our connections to this world. The answer to “how long” may someday be “now…..
Thank you for reading.
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It helps me get my book written!