The LORD’s Recurring Meetings

We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. The Truman Show

What's the most valuable thing you have?

Is it the ’65 Shelby?

Maybe the two-story house on a quiet rural property?

Maybe you rushed out to upgrade to the iPhone 17?

Or maybe you’re thinking bigger—your family, your friends.

But the truth is, all of those things—yes, even the Shelby—are insignificant compared to one thing:

time.

Time might be the most valuable thing you have—and yet, it’s the thing most of us think about the least.

Once a moment passes, it’s gone. There’s no getting it back.

But we inherently know that not all moments are equal.

Stephen Covey explains this idea that we can spend our time wisely or foolishly—investing it in things that last, or in things that disappear as quickly as they came. The reality is, we can't not spend our time. We are always investing it.

And when we invest it well, it becomes powerful.

The moment that just passed—the one riiiiiight now—can shape what comes next, for good or for worse. In that sense, it can almost feel like time is recovered—when we change what matters, when we reorder our lives, when we stop giving ourselves to things that don’t last.

We even spend time we haven’t reached yet—planning it, filling it, deciding in advance what it will mean.

Which raises a deeper question:

Who—or what—is shaping the way we use it?

Because the rhythm of our lives—when we work, when we rest, when we celebrate, what we remember—has largely been handed to us by a system we rarely stop to examine.

And if that system is shaping us…

it’s worth asking whether it’s the right one.

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. Theophrastus

The truth is, we're not just living by one calendar—we're living inside several at the same time.

Your workplace may run on a fiscal year that doesn't match the calendar year. Schools shape family life around a fall-to-spring rhythm. Our culture builds anticipation around things like Christmas and New Year’s.

And even if we don’t always think about it this way, many churches follow a rhythm too—Advent, Lent, Easter, Pentecost.

Each of these systems is doing more than just organizing time.

They’re quietly teaching us:

• what’s important

• what deserves celebration

• what we should be looking forward to

And we absorb all of that without even realizing it.

Which raises a question most of us have probably never asked:

What if God has a calendar too?

Not just a way of tracking time—but a way of structuring it, shaping it, filling it with meaning that reveals who He is and what He is doing.

If that’s true, then before we can understand the feasts described in Scripture, we need to understand the time system into which they are set.

Never be too busy to meet with Him Modified from Billy Graham

A natural place to begin is Leviticus 23.

At first glance, it reads like a list—specific days, specific observances. It’s easy to assume this is simply a set of religious holidays given to Israel.

But the opening words shift the entire perspective.

God does not say, “These are your feasts.”

He says:

“These are My appointed times…”

That teeny weeny detail matters.

These times do not originate with or belong to Israel. They belong to God Himself. They are His before they are ever observed by His people.

The Hebrew word used here is מוֹעֲדִים (moedim). It's often translated as “feasts,” but that translation doesn't quite carry the full meaning.

The word refers to:

• an appointed time

• a fixed meeting

• something set in advance

It carries the idea of intentionality—and even more than that, encounter.

Think about how you schedule a meeting. You don’t simply say, “We should connect sometime.” You choose a time, you set it aside, and you expect both parties to be present.

That is the idea behind moedim.

These are not merely a day off work to go buy a mattress.

They are appointments—moments God has set aside to meet with His people.

Time is God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. C.S. Lewis

Once you begin to see that, another question naturally pops up:

Where did these appointed times come from?

Leviticus 23 tells us what to observe and when, and connects them to their deliverance from Egypt — but it presents them almost as though they are already established.

So are they being created here in Leviticus… or revealed in Leviticus?

To answer that, we have to go all the way back to Genesis 1.

In the creation account, God forms the sun, the moon, and the stars and assigns them a purpose: “Let them be for signs and for seasons…” Gen. 1:14

The word translated “seasons” is—once again—מוֹעֲדִים (moedim).

That means something profound:

This idea does not begin at Sinai. It is woven into creation itself.

Before there is a nation of Israel…before there are commands…before anyone is told to observe anything…

Time itself is already structured around these appointed moments.

The movement of the sun.The phases of the moon.The rhythms built into creation.

None of this is accidental.

They are not merely practical features of the world—they are signals.

They mark out moments in time that point to something deeper.

God dwells in eternity, but time dwells in God A.W. Tozer

So when we return to Leviticus 23, we are not watching God invent a new religious system.

We are seeing Him reveal something that has been there from the very beginning.

The appointed times were not created at Sinai—they were identified.

And more than that, God is teaching His people how to live within that rhythm.

The Million Shekel Kwestion

If it is true that God has ordered time for his people, then the issue is not whether God has appointed times—

it’s whether we have been trained to recognize them.

Because the way Scripture marks time is not congruent with the way the world marks time.

And as a result, the way Scripture marks time is not the way most of us experience it.

Which means before we can understand the feasts themselves, we need to step back and ask:

🗓️ What kind of calendar is the Bible actually using?

🤓 And what happens when we begin to see time

➡️ the way it wants us to see time?

He has made everything beautiful in its time. The Koholet: Ecclesiastes 3:11