One of the things people have said to me very often in my life is, “You’re ahead of your time.” It was meant as an affirmation and I loved them for it. There were times where it appeared to be true. People could come up with things that vaguely looked like things I had done years before, and I would say, “Hey, would you look at that.” Occasionally, I would even get upset wondering why success had “eluded me” while they had a hit with something I could have done. (Keep those last four words in mind. We’ll get back to them.) Was I ahead of my time? Are any of us really ahead of our time? For that matter, can we really be ahead of our time? While I really love the people that said that to me as an affirmation, I think I am going to have to say, “No!”
You see the Lord, selected the time we were to be born and all the days of our lives were written in His book before one of them came to be. This means quite simply, God hand picked the exact time you and I would live, we are not ahead of our time, we are living in our exact time. Put another way, your time and mine, is now, and to paraphrase Mordecai from the book of Esther, “you were born for such a time as this.’ This is your time—today—right now! The Sovereign God in His sovereignty saw to it that you would be alive in this time frame, The question then becomes, “What are you going to do about it?”
Let’s go back to those aforementioned four words, “I could have done.” Could I have done the things others succeeded with? I suppose, at least in the sense that I had the talent and ability. However, there is a big difference between “Could have done” and “did!” I could have done it (arguably) but the other person actually did it. They put in the blood, sweat and tears. They did the work and as such they reaped the rewards, while I, at the very least, stopped short of the goal. I have no one to blame but myself… or maybe God.
Okay, now that I have your attention, let me explain. I have had several times in life, where I believe I was pretty close to a breakthrough that would have brought me a lot of worldly success, and in those moments, something always seemed to go “wrong.” Notice “wrong” is in quotes. “Wrong” in this case means I didn’t end up getting the success or accolades I envisioned getting and someone else got them instead, but was that really wrong? I know for a fact that at the time I was in, I was so sold out to becoming a famous artist, that I was a total mess. I was sacrificing all else on the altar of success and fame, and if God had let me succeed in that place, I would have lost everything else, and those were the things that really mattered. Sometimes God in His mercy allows us to fail, to save us from ourselves. I believe with all my heart that this happened to me and I praise Him for it. I believe God let me fail, because He had something better for me, and I would have lost it if He had given me what I thought I wanted.
Of course there is a way we can be ahead of our time. I was a little kid, somewhere between six and ten years old, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to make art and tell stories. Throughout all of life, in one way or another I would always end up coming back to that. At some times I thought it would happen by me becoming an entertainer. Then later I thought it would happen if became a comic artist. What I had no idea about was that God would one day call me to ministry and teach me how to use art and storytelling as a tool. That thought had never even crossed my mind. Yet all along the way, using my 2020 hindsight, I can see how God was preparing me. Some positions taught me valuable skills. Some helped me to meet people who would move me forward. Some just paid the bills, and a few positions even taught me things I didn’t want. Painful moments gave me compassion. Discouragement and disappointment helped me to get stronger. And then one day I met Jesus and things started to fall into place. There were times along this journey where I wanted to jump the gun and skip steps. Truth be known that would have put me in the wrong kind of “Ahead of my time” and would have no doubt caused some painful course corrections. The thing is all of my life, God was preparing me for this time, the time in which He put me.
I could not have asked for a better life or calling. I’m not ahead of my time, but I am having the time of my life and I finally know that God is preparing me for life in this time.
AMOKArts 