It is hard to believe that almost a
month has passed since my first post here. Inevitably, the holiday season
always tends to fly by way too fast. My weeks were joyfully filled with the
birth of a precious new nephew, time spent celebrating with family and friends,
and a trip to Florida for more celebrating with new friends.
In the midst of all of the busyness
of the season, I found myself thinking a lot about time. Time is a funny thing –
consider way it sometimes stretches on and on (like the last 30 minutes of a
slow workday) or how it compresses itself into a tiny fast-moving target when
there is a deadline to meet. It is a resource like air or gravity – simultaneously
essential to our being and easy to take for granted.
In addition to thinking about the
steady march of time, I've been thinking a lot about the timing of events. God’s
timing of events, to be specific.
A couple of years ago, a phrase
from Romans 5:6 leapt off the page for me in a new way. “You see, at
just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly.” Just the right time… although God’s people (and all of creation for
that matter {Rom. 8:19}) had been waiting for ages for the restoration of God’s
relationship with His people – there was apparently something special about the
timing of when Christ lived and died on this planet. Paul further expands on
this idea in Galatians 3:4-5 – “…when the set time had fully come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that
we might receive adoption to sonship.” The idea of time “fully come” suggests
that certain things had to be in place or developed, much like a ripened fruit
being at its peak after a certain number of hours of sunlight and fresh water.
These verses make me think of the
way I treat time in my own life. All too often, I let myself become frustrated
by the ridiculous speedy-when-I-have-work-to-do and
slow-when-I-want-something-to-happen nature of time. I want to learn more about
trusting that the God who created time and is himself timeless really does have
a plan for “just the right time” regarding the events of my own life. After
all, Christ himself said that there is no point in worrying about time (Luke12:25).
Are you, like me, waiting for God’s
timing to bring certain things into your life? Or perhaps you are frustrated
with certain events that seem to be occurring at such a wrong time for you.
Whatever you face, rest in the knowledge that ‘“For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts.”’ (Isaiah 55:8-9) We may not understand God’s timing, but
we can rest assured that He knows what He is doing. May God show you how he is
bringing about “the fullness of time” in your own life in a fresh way today!
