Cheryl Mendoza

There is a song I’ve really liked since I was a teenager, “Only time will tell” by ASIA.  It came out in my MTV years, and I must have watched the video a hundred times or more. I hadn’t heard it in years, but out of nowhere it popped into my head.  Well not totally out of nowhere, as it seemed to sum up what I had been reading pretty nicely.

It’s something I started learning last year when I read about David. He was being run out of town, as his son was forcefully taking over.  As he is leaving, he is heckled by a certain man who was a relative of the previous king.  When David’s men wanted to kill the man for his words, David stops them.  He tells his men that what this guy is saying may be true.  God may even have told him to say it.  So who am I, says David, to do anything about it?

I was really struck by David’s attitude.  It was like he realized that God could have told this guy to say these things.  That maybe this guy could be speaking truth, and until David knew if it was true or not, then he was going to leave this guy alone.   We see later that when time had gone by, the man did get his comeuppance by David’s other son, Solomon.

It was like David understood that, “only time will tell.”   And David’s life is a prime example.  God says of David, “he is a man after my own heart.”  Really?  Looking at David’s story, there are plenty of times where he looked anything but that kind of man.  We can only somewhat understand what God means when we look at David’s life as a whole.

So I had read that last year, and for some reason it really stuck with me. That sometimes you really have to wait to see the whole picture.  Sometimes the real truth or even the real personality only comes out through time.

Only time will tell.  I was glad to be pondering what God was saying to me. This seemed to be a lesson I needed to learn, although at the time I wasn’t sure why.  It did give me hope that truth will eventually be made known. It made me think though, what will happen in the “only time will tell” portion of the story?  How will that effect people?  It made me nervous.

God is in control, but sometimes His work seems slow in coming.   Really, that “slowness” is His mercy.  Sometimes I am not obedient to what He is asking, and instead of dealing with it immediately, He gives me a little time to get my act together.  Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t.  When I do, it is pretty good.  I learn, grow and get closer to God.  If I don’t?  Well, then typically God has to do a bit of work in my life to bring me around to His way of thinking.  Many times it’s painful.  If something shouldn’t be in my life, and if I don’t let it go, well then God has a way of taking it out of my hands. It is for my own good, but it hurts when that happens.  Even more concerning, it has the potential of hurting others.

It is the potential harm to others that really made me wonder.  How can that be averted?  I have seen where God had to do this with people and depending on who it is and their position, it can be a confusing time.  I know, I’ve lived it.  By God’s grace, I was able to get through it by having someone whom I respected taking the time to walk through it with me.  We would talk, bringing me wisdom when all I felt was confusion. I don’t even remember what she said, but her willingness to be a sounding board is what kept me on track. One thing I know we did not do, well that was get into a session where we just blamed people.

The funny thing was, I didn’t know the whole story back then and I don’t even know it now.  One thing is for sure though, I made it through.  I still love Jesus, go to church and even still serve.  This did not make me turn sour on the church or the people involved or following God.

It really made me wonder why?

I am not sure, but I remember that it wasn’t long after this that I learned something very important to me.  It was a comment that I took to heart.  “Don’t be spoon fed the gospel.”

It really drove home to me that the responsibility for my spiritual growth, journey and beliefs was mine.  Oh….and God’s of course!  I wasn’t to sit back and let someone tell me what Jesus was saying, I needed to see for myself.  I needed to use the brain that God had given me to read, listen, study and seek the Holy Spirits guidance.    I can listen to others, but I was also to run what was said through the Holy Spirit to see if it made sense.  To use scripture as a means to know this God I follow, so that I can make decisions that would honor Him.

Without realizing it, I just kept looking up.  I started to learn things through God’s word.  Not by someone else teaching them to me, but by the Holy Spirit making me see things.  To hear truth in His word and see it reflected in His creation, people, and even in a song with a really bad music video.

While this post has been weeks in the making, I was not sure how to end. So it has sat for a bit.  I was able to get a bit of perspective on this when I was reading on Thursday.  It was just one line, but it gave me peace in the midst of questions.  “Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread…”  Acts 12:24a