Why Here & Now?

"We are all Tethered to a particular Time and Space for a reason,"

~Baron Friedrich von Berger

There is a question that many of us ask at some point or another in our lives. The question is, "Of all the times and all the places I could have possibly existed, why am I in this particular time and place?"

The here and now may be soiled with suffering, want, or the overwhelming burdens of our particular pasts, and regrets. To be honest, the here and now can also appear ordinary while the yesterday and tomorrow holds more mystery or promise. I have often wished to have been born at another time, the ancient days of a Biblical epic, or medieval times of hammer and anvil, knights, and chivalry, or ages of exploration, or even simple subsistence farming in an era that seems timeless. I have often daydreamed of high adventures in the distant future aboard a starship set on interstellar travel.

I know that these ideas of past and future are romanticized, ignorant crushes. It takes only a little bit of reading to shed some light on the woes of temporal discontent. If the diseases of today are widespread and deadly, how much more so in the days when your doctor were your barber. And in the future, what type of immunity could we expect from the microbes of a distant world once we arrive? Or if my imagined spacecraft is armed with laser cannons then grisly intergalactic war is a given.

On the outset the question of "Why here and now?" does not appear to be a question of existence. It does not seem to be asking "Why do I exist?" It seems to assume there is an overall reason for existence, one that has meaning and purpose and destiny. The big issue of the question is concerned about the particulars of the given moment, location, and circumstances. However, if we accept that there is a reason why we exist at all, there must be a particular space and time when we will best accomplish our the very purpose for existence.

The Apostle Paul in his address to those gathered at the Areopagus says this speaking about God and why He placed people in the their particular times and places,

"and He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. ‘For in Him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now He commands that all people everywhere should repent, because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained; of which He has given assurance to all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead.”
Acts 17:26-31

This means that no mater when and where we are, God has placed us in that particular then and there for a reason. And, out of all the times and places in all of eternity, the here and now is the time and place when we would be most open to seeking after God and doing this thing called repenting. When we turn not away from God doing our own thing, but turning back to Him and His way. It also means that regardless of the circumstances that surround our conception and birth, we are not an accident, our time and place were ordained. There is also the imperative that there is a future event for which we must be adequately prepared. There must be a best time for that.

But why now, of all times, why now, and why these circumstances? If circumstances have left us dispirited, heavyhearted, agitated, or depressed with the overall burden of today, and if our souls are crying out for some real rest. We should dare to read the promise from Jesus, found recorded in Matthew 11:28-30.

"Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The author of Hebrews has a good deal to say about rest in the 3rd and 4th chapters, but there is also much to say about what we should be doing in the here and now.

7 Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says,

 

“Today if you will hear His voice,

8 don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,

in the day of the trial in the wilderness,

9 where your fathers tested Me and tried Me,

and saw My deeds for forty years.

10 Therefore I was displeased with that generation,

and said, ‘They always err in their heart,

but they didn’t know My ways.’

11 As I swore in My wrath,

‘They will not enter into My rest.’”

 

12 Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; 13 but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end, 15 while it is said,

 

“Today if you will hear his voice,

don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”

 

16 For who, when they heard, rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 With whom was He displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 To whom did He swear that they wouldn’t enter into His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

Chapter 4 

1 Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into His rest. 2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard. 3 For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as He has said, “As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into My rest;” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has said this somewhere about the seventh day, “God rested on the seventh day from all His works;”5 and in this place again, “They will not enter into My rest.”

6 Seeing therefore it remains that some should enter into it, and they to whom the good news was preached before failed to enter in because of disobedience, 7 He again defines a certain day, today, saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said),

“Today if you will hear His voice,

don’t harden your hearts.”

 

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken afterward of another day. 9 There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. 11 Let’s therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 There is no creature that is hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.

  

14 Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let’s hold tightly to our confession. 15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. 16 Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace for help in time of need.

So, "Why here and now?" It seems that the best time for us must indeed be "today".