On Time.

Psalm 27:14

Wait for the Lord;
    be strong and take heart
    and wait for the Lord.

I came across the following verse this morning:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap the harvest if we do not give up.       -Gal. 6:9 (NIV)

This verse is one I've heard throughout my life and I always think of it as being a good 'christian' and to 'keep on keeping on...' in doing 'good things' in life. This morning, it hit me a little differently...

The 'weird' phase...

A lot of people my age are at a weird phase of their life. I wouldn't call it the 'awkward' phase of life (that's the teens...), but honestly it's just weird. At 25, you have friends who have been in and out of college and have gotten their 'big kid' jobs, you have friends who are still in college, you have friends that never went to college, you have friends that went to college and are doing nothing with their life and you have friends that have hardly any education and are making more money than 4 of your friends combined. On another aspect of life, you have friends that are married, you have friends that are single, you have friends that date and date... and date, you have friends that never want to get married, you have friends that ONLY talk about ever getting married... and they are the single-est of them all. And to add one more aspect, you have friends that are 25 that act and live like they are 25... you have friends that are 20 that live as though they are 29 and then you have friends that are 31 that party like they are 21. With all that being said, the mid-20's are just a HUGE transition phase of life... and it's just... weird.

Over the past few years, I've really taken time to get my life on the track God has set for me and He has placed the people in my life that need to be there. It's been a hard few years and my faithfulness has definitely been tested... and there have been so many times when my impatience has kicked in and I've jumped to make decisions and done things on my timing... that clearly weren't God's timing.

The past 6 months have been full of events testing my patience and faithfulness... whether it be work or relationships, it's been an intense, but wonderful, 6 months. Most recently something that I had been trying to be patient and faithful with was suddenly ripped from my hands (which I shouldn't have ever been holding in my hands in the first place) and turned in a direction that I totally was not expecting. It hurt. A lot. And it still does... but it really has made me step back and think a lot about TIME. When it happened, I just kept saying, 'I wish I could just take back the past 6 months,' so I could change the outcome.

On Time...

When I read the words, 'proper time,' in Galations 6:9 this morning, I remembered what I had been saying about taking back the past 6 months of my life, and I realized, the events that are unfolding in front of my eyes and in my life are not on my timing. They are on God's timing. And his timing is perfect. Maybe not to what our human brains can wrap our minds around, but because He walks ahead, behind and beside us, He knows what is next on the agenda and He can overlook the past and walk with us to guide us through those times.

As I was thinking about this, God said to me, 'I'm not early. I'm not late. I'm ON TIME.' Wow. It's true... God is ON TIME.

In life, we will experience hardships, we will have to endure tests and trials and we will at times be heartbroken and find ourselves in a place that we never expected to be at a time that we thought something would be unfolding a different way than it did. In these times, we can rejoice knowing that God is ON TIME when we are FAITHFUL and TRUST in Him and His master plan.

God has given us each special talents and gifts with a purpose to share those with others. In these times of brokenness, we are called to keep doing good and being faithful with the talents and gifts God has given us because despite our human 'feelings,' God is going to use your talents to bring about something during that time... you just may be too distracted by the events blinding you to see His plan unfolding. So, as Galatians 6:9 says, 'Let us not become weary in doing good,' we need to endure the tests and trials that life throws at us. On His 'proper time,' we will 'reap the harvest if we do not give up.'

As I continued to think about all this, I realized that my hurt and brokenness may be distracting me from something else God is calling me to do. Maybe God is protecting me from something or maybe He just has other plans for me... either way, I have to step back and lay that hurt at the foot of the cross and live in peace knowing that God is ON TIME. He will work out those situations on perfect timing and I can rest knowing this. Joyce Meyer said,

God causes things to happen at exactly the right time! Your job is not to figure out when, but to make up your mind that you won't give up until you cross the finish line and are living in the radical, outrageous blessings of God. The more you trust Jesus and keep your eyes focused on Him, the more life you'll have. Trusting God brings life. Believing brings rest. So stop trying to figure everything out and let God be in your life.

This passage is so powerful and it's such a relief to know that we don't have to figure everything out. We just have to let go and let God work. We don't have to have all the answers we just have to live knowing that Jesus is THE answer and He WAS, IS and always WILL BE on time.

Whose time are you living on?

But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfectly and fully developed, lacking in nothing.       -James 1:4

I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.                -Jeremiah 29:11 (msg)