Timing is Everything

Galatians 4:4-5 (KJV) ⁴  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, ⁵  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

            “Timing is everything.”

            You’ve said or thought that before. You’ve certainly experienced it. I experience it regularly. Last week, for instance, I needed to have some bloodwork done after a doctor’s appointment a few days before. I decided to walk early in the morning and stop by the hospital as a part of my walk. I like to go early for things like that because the lab at the hospital isn’t usually as busy. As I was rounding the corner toward the entrance of the hospital I noticed a man who had gotten out of his car and was also headed to the entrance. He literally entered the building two seconds in front of me. Then he entered the registration area right in front of me. I missed it by… “that much”. Of course I had to wait for my turn to register. Then I had to wait for my turn in the lab because it just so happened that he was there for the same reason I was. He didn’t know me and I did not know him. He did not do anything wrong. But I was annoyed with him. What I originally thought might take about ten minutes in all, ended up being about 30-35 minutes. I had no right to be annoyed with him. He was there just like me. He just happened to be there two seconds before I was. “Snooze you lose,” right? It was just one of those things that happened in a certain way. Those things lead to the “if only’s” of thinking: I could have left earlier or walked faster and I would have arrived sooner and wouldn’t have to have waited. I find that is an unproductive way of thinking, and can even be unhealthy if/when we dwell on things and if our emotions are unchecked. “If only’s” have rarely don me any good.

            If you’ve ever waited to pull out behind another driver who ends up being an extremely slow driver, you are probably familiar with the “timing is everything” experience. The further you have to drive the more you wish you had pulled out in front of this driver, or that you could have gotten out ahead of him. And then you start a thought or a statement with, “If only…”

            Timing is everything in a manner of speaking. We want to be so in control of it, however, that the situations I have described and others like them can be quite bothersome and troubling. I know people who are tightly wound about time issues and are as precise and perfectionistic as a person can be. I know others who don’t even wear a watch. And then there are others who are rarely on time to anything they are obligated to. They live in a state of perpetual lateness (according to my timeframe). So, we all live someplace on the spectrum between totally tight and totally relaxed. I find it’s better for me (physically and emotionally) to use time wisely but to avoid being its victim. Perhaps I will learn someday about many hurts and dangers I actually missed because my schedule was impacted by another person (positively or negatively). Certainly the ways of God are beyond my comprehension, because the same questions can be asked about the hurts and dangers we do experience. I believe that ultimately those questions are unanswerable for us, but that God will make all things clear when we are in His presence someday. In the meantime I will leave those things in the category of the “secret things” that belong to God.

            I do know this: God has never had a problem with timing. There has never been a second of time in the history universe that has been out of order or out of place for Him. He created time as a part of His original work of Creation. And because He knows and does all things well, I can safely offer my time and my attitudes about it to Him. I can trust Him to act always at just the right time in just the right way as I wait on Him from day to day.

Deuteronomy 29:29 (NIV)  The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

PRAYER:  In your time… in your time. You make all things beautiful, in your time. Lord please show me every day, as you’re teaching me your way, that you do just what you say, in your time. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”

Jesus Christ is Lord!    

Scott