The Impetus of Time\Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda
Text: Ps 72:20 The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
Impetus can be defined as increased activity in response to a stimulus.
How many of you like the food network TV show called Chopped?
They get a basket of crazy insane ingredients that should never be paired with the other items in the basket, often times the chefs have no idea what some of the foods are, they are given a limited amount of time, it is counted down, and then ready or not the host says times up, stop what you are doing.
Some contestants wind up with food they have serious allergies to. Some orthodox Jewish contestants have been asked to cook shellfish or pork. Vegetarians have had to cook meat. In like manner God sometimes asks us to do things that are way beyond what we want to do or feel capable of.
Wow, how like life is that!?
We are given a basket of mystery ingredients.
We don’t get to pick the ingredients.
We only have a little time to work with them.
We know there is a great reward if we make something special out of what we have been given.
This past week on another cooking show, "The Next Iron Chef," they had a contest called, transformation. All the contestants were given canned food products, (anathema to real chef’s) such as spam, tuna fish, clams, and canned chicken. Their job was to transform it into something of culinary excellence, again they had a time factor to deal with, and a promised reward for success. That is life in a nutshell. I could preach on all those life truths, but have chosen to concentrate on just one of them today.
Today I want to talk about the impetus of the clock.
There is this notion in certain parts of Christianity that all the dealings of God, are pleasant and joyful. For such people there appears to be only one verse in the bible; John 10:10 "...I am come that you might have life, and that more abundantly." But when we peel back the layers of biblical truth one of the first things we find is that, "a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (LK 12:15) So then, whatever abundant life is, it is not about having possessions, as much as it is about being a possession of God.
In our message today I want to talk about woulda, coulda, shoulda and answer the simple question: "are they friend or foe?" Woulda, coulda, and shoulda are first cousins, to "times up, stop what you are doing." Today we are going to look at this passage in Psalms, and relate to Paul, Jesus, and us.
First we note there is a time that earthly prayers will be ended, this is true even for those who are of significant note in the scriptures. It is appointed unto man, once to die... We all have an appointment with death, at that juncture all praying for others will cease. As I reflect on that somber truth, woulda, coulda and shoulda lurch at me from the shadows. Will my prayers be critiqued? If they were put on a scale and weighed how much would the scale move? Have my prayers been self-centered or selfless. Will I be rewarded or chopped?
When I pass from this life to the next, what will remain? Have I left an inheritance of stored up prayers for my children, my family, my nation, my world? The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended! I remember in school there always came a time in the examination where the teacher would say, put down your pencils, time is up. That day is just a little bit further over the horizon, for all of us, thinking on that fact, though I am a pastor I still feel woulda, coulda, and shoulda nipping at my heels. Oh how I long to be able to say with Paul, I have finished the race, to have a sense of completion of all assigned tasks. But I travel this road with these three miserable companions, woulda, coulda, shoulda. Yet there is a part of me that knows, they are friend and not foe.
I am not talking about living under a sense of condemnation, but of living under a sense of compulsion. Until that time Paul knew his journey had ended he lived with a drive and a compulsion that he could not say no to. Listen to how he describes his sense of drive and mission and compares it to being in bondage:
Ac 20:22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:
Ac 20:23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.
Ac 20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
Paul spoke of a Divine arrest warrant issued in his life in Philippians:
Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended (arrested) of Christ Jesus.
Finally as regards to Paul, he firmly declared that his ministry was in part due to impressment. For those who don’t know impressment refers to the act of taking men into a navy by force. It was used by the British Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships. The British Navy would simply pull up to another ship and say, welcome you are now part of the British Navy.
Similarly on the American West coast in the mid 1800’s men where "shanghaied," to work on merchant vessels. Due to the gold rush, many able bodied seamen were leaving the sea in search of their pot of gold. It created such an acute shortage of merchant seaman that laws were passed that made it illegal for a seamen to leave his ship until the voyage completely ended regardless of ports of call along the way. Also unscrupulous men, who received a bounty for every able bodied sailor they provided, would use trickery, intimidation and violence to get men on the ships. For example they would get them drunk, and the next morning the men would wake up on a ship, their names having been forged, and now they were forced to remain on the ship, under the penalty of imprisonment if they tried to leave. This continued until the Seaman’s Act of 1915 made it illegal.
Paul describes his ministry in terms like that: 1Co 9:16 For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. I think Paul would say he felt it a privilege to be a preacher, but also he knew he was under divine obligation to do it. In other words, nipping at his heels throughout his life was this overarching sense that he had to complete the tasks he had been assigned. Like Luke, and Mark, and Archippus, his traveling companions, this sense of obligation was also his constant traveling companion. Paul was shanghaied by God, conscripted into His service, and compelled to pull at God’s oars. Every time he looked over his shoulder, barking at his feet was the dog of, "woe is me if I preach not the gospel." But was it a friend or foe?
I think a friend. A constant pressure to move him in the right direction. Leverage, inducement, constraint, all terms that would agree with the call of God on his life. In like manner, woulda, coulda, shoulda can be wonderful tools to keep you motivated in the right direction. They can also produce condemnation if your not careful. However, my observation is that more people suffer from lack of concern, than those whose concerns are so great it is personally destructive.
It is a good thing to be a haunted man or woman. Call it a burden, call it a passion, call it drive, call it woulda, coulda, shoulda, you can put a thousand different labels on it, they all boil down to the same thing, an overwhelming sense that you must do something that matters for eternity. And you must do it now, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended!" That is the impetus of time! Jesus, Himself, lived under such a feeling of constraint: John 9:4 "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." And again, John 4:34 "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." He was under a holy constraint to do a work for good and to finish it on time. Though it may feel uncomfortable and negative, the truth is, with proper balance the impetus of time is a blessing of motivation from God.
As people it is in our nature to find a place of rest, in fact it is very needful that we have rest this is shown in the goodness of God in declaring a Sabbath rest. The problem arises that we live in a time an age where men are seeking to avoid work at all costs. God uses the prophet Isaiah to rebuke the preachers of his age saying, "Isa 56:10 His watchmen [are] blind: they are all ignorant, they [are] all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber."
Before they know it, their, "I’ll get to it tomorrow," will become, the prayers of Jesse the son of David are ended. Woulda, coulda, and shoulda can become tormentors if you fail to let them become motivators.
I remember sitting in class in college one day, hearing a student tell with tears streaming down his face, the shock of that days morning newspaper. He lived in an apartment building and had a neighbor he kept feeling impressed of the Lord to speak to about his souls condition. He was chided time and time again. That morning the newspaper carried the story of how his neighbor had died in a motorcycle accident. The clock had run out, and he had failed to complete his assignment. Regret is a terrible thing to live with, and yet, it can be used as a pin prick to see to it that for the rest of your life, however long or short that may be, you are resolved to fulfill all assignments in a timely fashion. The clock of opportunity is always moving forward to the time that opportunity is no longer available.
Many of us can relate to this man’s story of missed opportunity. Wallowing in despair will not help. A mindset not to make the same mistake again is much more profitable. Successful people have always failed, but they have learned how to make their failures a springboard to success. A bow without tension is useless, it will never shoot an arrow. The deepest arrows have always been shot by those who have channeled their own personal failures into launch pads of renewed effort.
Those pinpricks of conscience are God’s helpers to keep us from living an insignificant life.
Not everything God gives us feels pleasant. Discipline, conviction, remorse, a great burden for the lost, all are difficult things to emotionally deal with, yet they are as important as joy, gladness of heart, and strength of conviction.
Isaiah said, "woe is me I am undone." David spoke of his heart being like wax melted within him, because of conviction for sin. He who humbles himself will be exalted. When a person is humbling themselves they are not extolling their victories, but lamenting their shortcomings. It is the cry, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner," that sends you home justified, not the "I thank God I am not as other men."
As we think about the impetus of time, I want you to thank God for deadlines, and let them ever bring back to your mind this text of scripture: Ps 72:20 "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." With the realization that it will one day be said also of you.
I want to close with two thoughts, one is a simple way to get rid (for a season) of woulda, coulda, and shoulda. The other is the impetus to time, encased in a wonderful hymn of the church.
The following is a poem from a man named Shel Silverstein, it has to do with dating, the idea is about the guy who woulda talked to the girl but didn’t, coulda asked for her number but didn’t, shoulda asked her out but didn’t, so he wound up alone.
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin’ in the sun,
Talkin’ bout the things
They woulda-coulda-shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did.
I did it, is the one thing in this life that chases woulda, coulda, shoulda away. I did it, is a much easier traveling companion than the impetus of time, and the pin pricks of woulda, coulda, shoulda.
As we close, here is the impetus of time, in a very familiar hymn:
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me;
Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,
Coming for you and for me.
Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!
