As our thoughts begin to turn toward Memorial Day weekend and summer vacations, do you remember these questions from the back seat of a car: “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” Not long after the questions were raised, comments like these followed: “He touched me.” “She’s sitting on my half of the seat.” And then the questions reappeared: “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” How many of us heard this response to at least one of these questions? “Just a little while.”
In John 16, 16, Jesus says, “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” What does “a little while” mean when it comes from the mouth of the Lord Jesus?
“Time” for a child goes slowly. Then we get older and time is anything but slow. And before long we begin to wonder intently, what does “a little while” really mean to the Lord? That phrase is repeated eight times in the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples in John 16.
In a fourteen billion year-old universe, the Rocky Mountains rise in a little while, the Appalachians shrink in a little while, continents shift and shape, stars are born, comets fly by light years away, and it’s just “a little while” to God. Are we ready to put things, all things, in His hands?
“Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures – I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. Amen.” Blessed Charles de Foucald
