"But what if we're not on time???" This is a thought that silently runs through my mind for any given situation - no matter how important or how insignificant. I am mentally disturbed concerning concepts of time and would make an interesting case study for a psychologist with too much time on his hands. (Time on his hands! Get it ???) I have never intentionally been late for 99.9% of anything I have ever done, and the 0.1% that I might have been 5 minutes late, I assure you that I was running in panic mode. Why is this?? Unless you're about to miss a plane, it is really that important that you're ALWAYS on time? (And when I say 'on time', I actually mean at least 15 minutes early. In my mind, early IS on time.) My hubby suffers from this malady also, which may come as a surprise to any of you who knows how slow he drives. My self-imposed strict adherence to the clock may stem from an incident that I vividly remember from my childhood. I missed the school bus. I don't remember why I missed the school bus, but I still remember that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I watched as the big yellow monstrosity slightly slowed, then went on down the gravel road in front of our house. Any other kid would have been thrilled, especially in my situation, because my mom didn't drive; dad was at work; we didn't have a phone to ask someone else to get me to school. While most kids would remember a fun day away from school, I remember almost sixty years later that I missed the bus. What a nerd.
In life, timing is everything. Play it right and you'll be the first in line at Walmart on Black Friday. If you are trying to cross the street in New York City and don't wait for the "walk" signal, you will most likely become road kill. If you're single and meet Prince Charming on your first blind date, do not - I repeat - do not tell him that you love him until at least the second date. Timing; it's all about timing.
But do you ever get frustrated with God's timing? The politically correct answer would obviously be "no"; but we are human and impatient and probably question His timing on a regular basis. But humans are so completely misguided. We trust a man-made alarm clock to get us up in the mornings so that we will be ON TIME for whatever important matter that awaits, yet we just can't quite trust God, who created every single cell, molecule, atom, bunny rabbit, rainbow and TIME management concept (sun, moon, stars, seasons, etc.). He's probably constantly shaking his head in utter amazement at our feeble and untimely attempts to control our life situations.
But back up just a minute. God created a rainbow! Did you ever stop to really think about that? Up until the flood, God had created a mist that rose from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. People had never experienced rain falling from the sky until the great flood that covered the whole earth. I think back many years ago when we were at Niagara Falls; there was no rain on that hot sunny day, yet hundreds of rainbows appeared everywhere from the mists that rose from those majestic falls. So just think about this. All the conditions had always been in place for a rainbow, in spite of there not being any actual rain, but it wasn't until after the flood that God told Noah, "This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." It was all in the timing. The conditions had always been right, but God had to take Noah through the flood before He "set the bow in the cloud". The promise was all about the timing!
And then there's Esther. I've read this book in the Bible many times, but this week it has just made so much more sense to me. Funny how that works, isn't it? Through lots of orchestrated events, Esther became queen and saved her people, the Jews, from sure death. "Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created." (Esther 4:14) It was all about the timing.
My mother prayed for my dad for over 60 years for him to get back in church. (And he did!) She never once doubted that God would honor her request. If I learned nothing else from my momma, it was to trust that God WILL honor the desires of your heart. But again, it's all in God's timing. We don't always understand, and it's so very easy to become impatient when we think we know what the answer should be. Had it been left up to me, my dad would have been back in church as soon as my mom's prayer left her lips, but God had a plan.
Are you waiting on an answer? Does it seem hopeless? Just remember Noah - he had to go through the flood in an ark filled with smelly animals, BUT THEN after the flood, God "set the bow in the clouds". God has promised. But it's all about the timing.
"Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." - Psalm 37:4
"Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened until you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." - Matthew 7:7
But He didn't say when, did He?
