Me neither.
Waiting is just one of those things that very few of us do well. Maybe that is why we fill the waiting with all sorts of distractions. Usually those distractions make things worse instead of better.
The Bible teaches that we should not be anxious about anything but most of us consider that the unreachable ideal of the Gospel. I mean, there are so many things for us to be anxious about in the real world! We're anxious about our kids, anxious about our jobs, anxious about finances, cars, vacations, our marriages, we're even anxious about matters of faith!
We've all heard that God's timing is perfect, I even blogged about this not too long ago with a reference from Gandalf in the first Lord of the Rings movie (I should have known). Timing is important. I remember that I was so mad at my parents for making me move 1/2 way across the U.S., so they could go back to school, during the second half of my Sophomore year of High School. But it was while I was there that I was accepted in a singing group and while walking up the stairs one afternoon after lunch someone invited me to play a game and I got to stand next to this stunningly beautiful blonde. I married her less than four years later after knowing her only a little over a week before I went home to Oregon and she to Kansas for the next 2.5 years.
There are things that I have prayed diligently for over my five years here with Real Life that I waited not-so-patiently for only to say once again that God's timing was perfect. But I didn't feel that way until He finally brought what I had been praying for about. No. The sad reality is that in the middle of my waiting I was anxious, angry and maybe a bit abusive in my dealings with God. Only AFTER God shows up are we able to see what needed to be in place before He would deliver.
God has better eyes than me. He sees what I can't, what is hidden to me. He sees how every thought, action and word ripples through the present moments of my life to change the future and how I see the past. And He isn't only looking at my life. He's watching your life too! God knew before I was born how that moment that my life intersected with Andrea's was going to impact not only out lives but create ripples that would change the world as we knew it. The four lives that would be brought into existence because our eyes met and in a moment the circles of our individual lives began to move out together.
Like a grand composer who sees the entire score of every human life, He moves the parts so that even before you get to the end of the chart He knows how perfectly it will resolve. He sees the future. He knows the past and He is involved in the present.
In The Message version of Acts 1 Jesus is talking with His disciples before he makes ascends to heaven and sends the promised Holy Spirit. The disciples, still thinking Jesus life and ministry was about the Jewish Nation (they could see the whole score yet) ask Him if it's time for Him to restore the kingdom back to Israel. I love the way verse sever reads, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business..."
Timing is God's business.
And I'm so glad! God is in control of timing because He can see what's coming, we can't. We are limited by our physical sight, He is not. He can see what will be and He knows what really is.
What are you anxious about?
Here's a few things to remember.
God is.
He loves you more than you can imagine.
He sees more than you can fathom.
He's working on your behalf as well as everyone else.
What you can't now see, God has already determined for you.
So in every anxious moment of your life, through prayer, make your requests known to God. But trust His Timing.
When did you trust God's timing and see Him come through?
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