Timing Is Everything

Dear Friends,

This morning I was reminded that God's timing cannot be separated from His will. It came about at the end of a frustrating process of trying to work through a problem at the church, only to hit one road block after another. Finally, after a few hours of my efforts getting me nowhere, I reached my limit - and in frustration said to God, “It's all Yours - You deal with it.” Within 10 minutes God had worked it out, with results that were better than anything I could have managed.

As I was pondering how God ended up managing the situation, I was reminded of two verses: Ecclesiastes 3:11 and Jeremiah 29:11. The Ecclesiastes passage tells us that God makes all things beautiful in His time, while the Jeremiah verse reminds us that God knows the plans He has for us. When we look at those verses side-by-side, what we see is that, not only does God have a plan for us, but He will unfold that plan according to His timing - and it will be beautiful.

For a lot of us, I think it's easy to think about these truths in what we consider the “big” areas of our lives. So we may tend to be more mindful of God’s plans for our in lives for things like where we work, or who we marry, and where we live. But it's a bit harder to live by them in our day-to-day lives. Most of us feel the pressure of deadlines, or the demands of our to-do lists, and so it's harder to wait on God to work things out. So instead, we grab hold of the reigns and plow through our days, getting things done to the best of our abilities. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't and we end up with mornings like I just had.

The more I've thought about this, the more convinced I am that God wants us to try to submit to His timing as much as we try to submit to His will. God isn't just interested in the big decision points in our lives, He's interested in all of our lives. God wants us to realize that He’s walking and working through everyday life with us. Psalm 37:23 describes it like this, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” God has a plan for the details of our lives, and it's a plan that will unfold according to His timing.

So how do we learn to live this way? How do we go about getting things done that have to be done, while at the same time, following God's leading and timing? Simple - we let go, and let God. Here's what I mean - we come to God with our daily activities and tasks and ask for His will to be done, according to His timing. And then we go about our day holding on to our agendas loosely, allowing God to improve on our plans as He carries out His plan. The result is that His plan will prevail - and His plan will ultimately always be better than ours.

So today, let's try it. Let’s give our day-to-day lives over to God. Let’s ask Him to carry out His timing in what we do today, and then let's be prepared to let go, and let Him work. And as we see God at work in the details of our day, let's be sure to thank Him, and to let others know that it's Gods great plan unfolding - not ours.

Amen?

Daniel