I have analyzed it, looked at it, prayed about it and have drawn only one conclusion.
It keeps moving, whether I want it to slow down or speed up, depending on my daily circumstances.
It was like yesterday that this happened, or “where did all the time go?”
Tick tock- can’t stop God’s clock.
Paul pointed out how to be contented with every circumstance in life, whether that be good or bad.
Shipwrecked, stoned with rocks, beaten with rods and put into prison, speak to God’s resilience and God’s power to work in a man called Paul, no matter the situation.
He was indeed blinded for three days as Saul the Christian killer.
He woke up and saw the light!
Floating in the ocean and almost drowning was not easy for Paul, yet he survived, writing a lot of letters to the church.
In prison.
Not a Federal Prison like I have preached in before in Oregon, Arizona and beyond.
Nice clean clothes, and three-square meals a day.
Visitations, letters, and some sort of entertainment were and are available in prisons in America.
Hobby shops and metal working too. Art supplies for those who are talented.
Musical instruments for the worship team in church.
Paul could have used the metal works class to fashion a key to unlock his stocks in the inner prison with Silas.
That was then, and this is now.
He and Silas did not have guitars, microphones or a backup choir to aid them in their worship.
They worshipped out of their trust in God, even though they were in tremendous pain.
Human nature might allow us to complain sometimes, but in Christ, complaining should only be an “every now and then” moment.
Not a lifestyle.
I also believe that when things happen, like what happened here in Kerr County, Texas on July 4th of 2025, that the Christians here would pray in their pain. Pray in their grief.
Pray and believe that God will show up in their season of time.
Since I know personally what it is like to “do time” in prison in 1976, I can honestly say that the only thing worse than doing time, is wasting the time you have.
Time is valuable, like gold and silver.
It is not to be wasted, squandered, or spent on frivolous things that won’t last.
I am not talking about going on vacation, or a night out at the movies. Just make sure your vacation spot is not Las Vegas or watching a movie rated “NFC.”
Not for Christians.
Time is an asset, not a liability.
Invest your time wisely as there will surely come a day when you and I will run out of this precious commodity.
Your hourglass will empty itself of the last grain of sand.
Your clock and its second hand will cease to move at all.
Father time will stop and what remains and what will last “eternal” is only what you and I did for Jesus.
Nothing more, nothing less.
We are the hands, feet and voice for Christ.
Use your hands to bring healing to the hurting.
Use your feet to run to those who are in despair.
Speak your voice that Jesus gives you to comfort the downtrodden.
For in God’s time, we have hope.
In your life is either hope to believe for a closer relationship with Jesus, despite the spiritual “stocks” you are bound in Like Silas and Paul.
Seasons in life come and they go. Quickly.
Good times, bad times, lonely times, and despairing times.
Times of grief and times of great joy.
What shall we make of the current season we are in?
Romans 14: 12-13,
“So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.”
Paul is reminding us that we, alone, are responsible for our words, and our deeds.
It is the way we conduct our lives.
But so also are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
They, too, are responsible for what they say and what they do.
And what they eat or drink.
Continue to walk in love, no matter what.
Sometimes, and too often, we can become critical of our fellow Christians at church.
We know them and their ways of doing things.
If they do not live up to or conform to our own set standards, or preferred behavior patterns, we tend to silently criticize or judge them.
Instead of looking at other’s flaws, perhaps we should take the plank out of our eye first and then help to remove the toothpick in our brothers and sisters' eyes.
I have been through many seasons in my 69 years of being on this Earth.
In 2010, I left Houston to move to Kerrville, Texas.
Not by choice, but because of finances.
I sold our home and left behind a construction company where I was clearing $3,800.00 per month for three years. This was after all expenses including house payments and everything that is called a life expense. I saved some money but basically sowed into other ministries and believed God for His abundance for every good work. I preached as much as I could, considering all my responsibilities in Houston.
That amount of money cleared each month was more than I had ever made in my life, and I left all of that to work at a drug rehab for nine dollars an hour.
I was trying to remember Paul’s words about being contented.
I truly tried but was suffering just like my wife and my two young boys. The boys did not do without food, but my wife and I did, for their sake.
That is what parents do in the abased times.
I was brought low and humbled, using the true meaning of the word abased.
I worked there three years and managed to make twelve dollars an hour when I finally left. I worked again in construction, digging a ditch with a pickaxe and shovel.
I was 58 years old then, and I remember the hot Texas sun in August digging that ditch. It was a ditch for a sewage treatment plant being built on an Assemblies of God retreat.
I remember sitting on the edge of the ditch with my shovel in hand, shoveling out dirt to prepare the long 100-foot ditch, three feet deep, and two- foot wide. I could no longer stand and bend over to use the shovel.
I was beat.
I then prepared the rebar for the ditch so the concrete truck could pour the wet concrete the next day.
I got a call from my Pastor, who I was working for, and he told me at 6 a.m., that the thunderstorm that went through last night, filled up my ditch with mud.
I had to go back there, shovel out the wet mud, and remove the 10-foot lengths of heavy rebar steel.
Pain, and more pain. Abased.
Eight hours later, as the concrete trucks arrived to do the pour, I had to work overtime and finish the job with the shovel.
Here I am. From Houston, running a remodeling company from inside a brand-new Toyota Tundra truck with nice jeans and a polo shirt, to a ditch with blisters, sunburns and unmentionable pains in the back.
I made $14.00 per hour doing this work and I was glad to be able to pay for real food for my family.
I learned, without too much griping, how to be contented.
This season lasted three years.
Carrying 80-pound concrete bags for deck jobs, climbing an extension ladder 15 feet into the air to paint the dormers on a two-story house.
I love heights.
Fact: “A curb on the street is too high for me.”
That ladder work took me praying in tongues to survive.
I only fell off the ladder once to learn my lesson about spatial awareness.
Today, I am living on a ranch, still doing some hard labor. I do not work for anyone except the owner.
I work when I want to work. Preach when I preach, and life is good.
From poverty to provision.
The only explanation I can give is that I know how to give.
I gave of my time to volunteer in prisons and preach the Gospel. I planted money in good ground in people and ministries that I believed in.
I reaped what I sowed.
Those years from 2010 until 2022 were hard. Very hard.
Had I been 20 years old, then that work would have kept me in shape.
Not in my 50’s.
I am reminded daily to stand up straight Joe.
Don’t drag your feet.
“Okay, Honey.”
The seasons of our life include birth, formative years, adolescence-teenage years, young adult to grown adult years. Then comes the 50 plus years.
I call these the twilight years. Not twilight zone years.
We have dry seasons when God is quiet, and it is harder to hear His Voice.
Then we have the waiting season, being patient for Him to move in our lives.
God leverages waiting seasons for His Glory like He did with Joseph when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.
That trial for Joseph worked out in the end.
Favor coupled with forgiveness that Joseph had for his brothers.
The grinding seasons are the hard-working times and the busy times of work, play, and raising a family.
Don’t forget Church.
Test and trials seasons. They speak for themselves.
Spiritual Warfare seasons. It takes time to discern which is a spiritual attack and which is just bad pizza not digesting well.
You catch my drift?
Not every trial is from the devil. If that were the case, then what you bound on earth which was supposed to be bound in Heaven did not work.
Figure that one out and let me know your results.
I wrote the following poem many years ago. The first draft was from when I wrote it on scrap paper while in prison in 1976-1977. I was saved by Jesus when I wrote:
“From Your Embrace”
Tick, tock, your pendulum swings. No time for games, and no church bells ring.
Our hourglass sand is me and is you. Each grain that falls can be brand new.
We have some time to get things right; to fix what’s broken within our sight.
The way we were does not define; who we are right now, because of time.
Jesus said, “You need eyes to see.” With His Father’s time; “What will you be?”
Are we lost in sin and wasting time? This must be worth much more than rhymes.
We say: “I wanted to Lord, I was going to get saved.” But there’s no more time for your banner to wave.
Empty promises and broken dreams; have stolen your time, and now you can’t scream.
“What shall I do as my pendulum swings?” I want to hear those church bells ring!
Receive His mercy before it’s too late, as eternity holds our future fates.
As these sands of time will stop one day; The clock will quit, as I hope to pray:
“Forgive me Lord for wasting YOUR time. I know today I’ve committed crimes.
Find me “not guilty” as I seek Your face. I’ll receive forgiveness, from Your embrace.
We are all just one heartbeat away from eternity.
It is a season of time that this life offers.
No more. No less.
How much time do you and I have?
Can you feel your heartbeat?
“Thump, thump, thump.” Thump...thump.................?
Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins
