It’s Just a Matter of Timing

In my lifetime, and within my age group, I’ve experienced some great changes in life. Thanks to several “somebodies” have been at the right place, right time, and with the right amount of foresight. Due to these special people, I grew up in technology riding on the shoulders of Microsoft, Apple, Google, and others.

From early in my career in IT (we used to call it Data Processing), I worked with visionaries that could work miracles! Take that mainframe and challenge the world! It was a blast to move away from keypunch cards (and punch tape)! Floppy disks, enormous tape libraries, and 10 megabyte removable hard drives. It was long before the “online” systems we take for granted today. Yet, we were able to process the companies needs. Programming in over 37 languages, I moved across the breadth of experience and enjoyed those 33 years.

Then, life changes. Y2K had come and gone. Suddenly, I’m in a new state, with an aging experience, and a higher salary base than companies wanted to pay. Solution? Move north a little bit. There, I could work with some of those previously mentioned entities and change the framework of my retirement.

But the timing, nor calling, was right.

I reinvented myself and focused on doing what I was called to do. Add an advanced degree, and suddenly the door seemed to be opening again. Alas, it was not to be.

Now, I’m 65 and the next bend in the road is rapidly approaching.

I’ve seen God’s Timing

A great part of the Bible contains promises from God to His creation. It has been said that when God makes a promise, something happens.

Faith believes it, hope anticipates it, and patience quietly awaits it.

I have faith in his promises. My hope anticipates the arrival of his promises. But it’s in that area of patience that many of us struggle.

Just because something doesn’t happen when I want it to, does that make the promise a lie? I must remember God’s timing is for eternity, and I’m here for just a few decades.

Think about this example. Israel cried out for God’s deliverance from Egypt. When it didn’t happen within a generation or two, did they give up? I’m sure some did, but their lot in life was set. Their identity was set. Flee? Perhaps. But where? How? Was it doable?

God had promised them a land, and they weren’t in it. This promise could not be removed, skipped, nor forgotten. Why? God doesn’t lie. (Numbers 23:19) His counsel (word) is unchangeable! (Hebrews 6:17-18)

It’s all about God’s timing! 400 years in Egypt, and finally the timing is right!

Could you and I wait that long? No way! We wouldn’t live long enough to see the promise experienced!

What Do We Do?

I’m not sure how you get through life without having faith and hope of working within your life. I’m anticipating His promises! Daily! When will it happen? Not sure. But this doesn’t change my focus.

Abraham and Sarah tried to take matters into their own hand. The promise heritage (Genesis 17:3-8) had not arrived and time was getting short. This did not limit God’s promise! It simply added an unseen wrinkle.

Isn’t’ that what most of us do? We manufacture the results to match the promise. Or, we focus the timing through our own machinations to suit our position.

Why are we so impatient? Times and seasons come and go! Suffering is something we can handle, and we have the example of the early church to prove that it’s manageable. What we are going through is no different than what has happened since the beginning. What happens after we are gone will simply be a repeat…

All of life is far more boring than words could ever say.
Our eyes and our ears are never satisfied with what we see and hear. Everything that happens has happened before;
nothing is new, nothing under the sun.
Someone might say, “Here is something new!”
But it happened before, long before we were born.
No one who lived in the past is remembered anymore,
and everyone yet to be born will be forgotten too.
(Ecclesiastes 1:8-11 CEV)

What Now?

The Apostle Paul understood this situation so well. Trained and steeped in the Law of God, he came face to face with God on the road. Blinded. Hearing God’s command. And waiting for resolution. Then, taking the New Covenant on the road to “…Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel…” and he would suffer along the way. (Acts 9:15-16)

Along the way, he instructs how tribulation produces patience, that leads to experience, and finally, hope! (Romans 5:3-4)

A lesson for us? Directly from Jesus…

In your patience possess ye your souls.
(Luke 21:19 KJV)

By your patience, you will preserve, win, and save your souls! In other words, it’s how you endure until the end. Impatient? Sure, at times we are. But learning patience brings the solution! It’s God’s timing. Not yours!