When I think about “God’s timing” I often think of how He provided something for me at just the “right” time or how I received something I wanted. When we look at the issue of God’s timing are we really looking at the timing of when things do or do not occur? Or is this an issue more along the lines of trust and faith?
Hebrews 11:1 is a well known scripture about faith, “now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
What do you hope for?
Hebrews 11:1 is a well known scripture about faith, “now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
What do you hope for?
Are you still in waiting?
What kind of evidence can you have if you can’t see it?
What does it mean by “the substance of things hoped for”?
For so many of us, I feel that we have faith in the things that we “hope” will happen. We hope we get that job, we hope the right person will come along, we hope that the sickness will be cured, etc.
But that mentality raises a question: “does our faith stay intact if what we are hoping for doesn’t become a reality?” what if you don’t get the job we were hoping for, what if you’re single at 45…still, what if the cancer continues to spread regardless of medicine, chemo, specialists and prayer?
What if none of the things you’ve been praying, hoping and telling yourself, “it will happen when God is ready for it to happen.”?
What do you do when the grad school you’ve been working toward getting into for the last 5 years doesn’t accept you?
How do you respond when it feels like God slams the door in your face?
Will your faith stay intact?
Will you “always” praise Him?
Will your faith be shaken so hard it is reduced to rubble?
and if your faith is shaken when your hopes don’t become a reality, did you ever have faith in God or was your faith in what we have been hoping for?
All too often we, as Christians birthed into a world of convenience, think that God will and should give
us what we pray for. Isn’t this what God is supposed to do. We take scripture and abuse it, twist it and distort it’s original intentions to comfort our own version of God. But when we do this, aren’t we killing God and replacing Him with our own warped version so that we might be able to explain why things have been going the way they have. Because there is absolutely no way that all of this stuff could be our doing….right?
How do you wrestle with the scripture that states, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” when you’re praying daily for something and it never comes?
Do you feel like God gives you the desires of your heart? Why? Or Why Not?
There are a couple of ways you can look God giving (or not giving) you the desires or your heart: 1) you can turn around from the closed door and find an open door. Isn’t this feeling why we’ve always been taught, “when one door closes another one opens?”
The other outlook: Perhaps God is not trying to shut a door in your face to show you the correct path to take, but maybe He wants to see how persistent and passionate you feel to go through that door.
Maybe, just maybe, He wants you to push harder in the direction you’ve been asked to run.
Maybe He is trying to teach your persistence and endurance?
Maybe He is giving you a taste of what Job felt with the hardships of life to see if you’re faith is strong even when it’s shaken?
Romans 5:1 – 5 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
Don’t miss that Our Faith is backed by our Hope.
Many people have confused the idea of having faith in an answer to prayers and having faith in the Will of God.
Have we confused faith in God with faith in an answer or a solution?
I think these are two totally different outlooks. Faith in God requires patience. It requires an understanding that God is outside of our realm of thinking, our realm of time and therefore our realm of “timing”. We think of time as past, present, future, but all that we can see is the present. We can only see where we are at on the timeline at this moment. Think of it as you being a dot on a timeline. All you see is what today brings. God sees time in a whole different realm of understanding. He is like a man holding our timeline in His hand. He can move it up, down, left, right, etc. He can move it in any direction He wishes to see what He needs to see. He can see the past, present and future; the beginning and the end. We see a two dimensional world while God lives in a three dimensional world.
It has been said that we are a microwave society. We expect answers quickly. We want results now, not tomorrow and surely not next year but NOW.
I wonder if this mindset killing our faith in God?
Is it causing us to give up on Faith too quickly because we can’t see all that God is doing behind the scenes? We don’t see what needs to take place for three years before our next step can be taken. It’s hard to realize that one small step for us effects everyone around us and vice versa.
God constantly works behind the scenes.
Take a look at a few facts about the Birth of Christ and see how God worked behind the scenes to orchestrate everything with precise timing for the birth of Christ as well as how the times helped the quick spread of the gospel.
• Jesus was born in the reign of the roman emperor augustus. There are countless things we could talk about with Augustus. The fact that he set up a 12 day celebration called the advent of ceasar. He was known as a god who was sent to save the world from their sins.
• Before the birth of Christ was an extended period of wars which racked the Mediterranean region and gave Rome the power that it needed to gain control. After Rome gained control over the region political unity was no longer an issue which freed up traveling problems between nation to nation… it was all Roman territory.
• The Roman Government established roadways between provinces for quicker travel and trade, which would make an escape from the country easier -- if needed.
• Once the Romans came to power a unified language came into existence. Just think how difficult the gospel would be to spread if the language from region to region would have been different.
If Christ would have been born 200 years earlier, how would History have been different? Would all of the prophecies have been fulfilled? Would you be where you are today, reading this?
It takes us being alert and in tune with the spirit to understand and appreciate God’s timing. There isn’t an easy formula for doing God’s will, and we shouldn’t be too quick to think we grasp his plans. God has dramatically different plans for our lives. All of us are on different timelines and His way doesn’t always make the most sense or look the most appealing.
Consider:
• a young, teenage jewish girl conceives a child miraculously. At times God is ready for us to move before we think it is logical to do so.
• this teenager gives birth to a son who will save the world in a humble stable. Sometimes we think we’re unprepared to do something because we lack certain material luxuries. These luxuries may not be necessary to carry out what Christ wants us to do.
• Christ calls two young brothers, who were most likely around 15 years old, from a small fishing village of 300 people -- they were uneducated; they were mere fisherman (a lower occupation on the totem pole); they were what we would consider to be “the JV team”. We don’t always have to have the “proper” qualifications (by the world’s standards) to serve God. God changed the face of the world with the JV team!
What does faith in God look like?
How do we practice a trust in God’s timing?
Perhaps are prayers haven’t been answered yet because we aren’t to that scene of the movie yet.
Perhaps we aren’t focused on God.
Perhaps the situation around us isn’t ready for us to do what we feel called to do.
If we want to have a peace about God’s timing, we must be willing to give Him our time.
.:rustinklafka
But that mentality raises a question: “does our faith stay intact if what we are hoping for doesn’t become a reality?” what if you don’t get the job we were hoping for, what if you’re single at 45…still, what if the cancer continues to spread regardless of medicine, chemo, specialists and prayer?
What if none of the things you’ve been praying, hoping and telling yourself, “it will happen when God is ready for it to happen.”?
What do you do when the grad school you’ve been working toward getting into for the last 5 years doesn’t accept you?
How do you respond when it feels like God slams the door in your face?
Will your faith stay intact?
Will you “always” praise Him?
Will your faith be shaken so hard it is reduced to rubble?
and if your faith is shaken when your hopes don’t become a reality, did you ever have faith in God or was your faith in what we have been hoping for?
All too often we, as Christians birthed into a world of convenience, think that God will and should give
us what we pray for. Isn’t this what God is supposed to do. We take scripture and abuse it, twist it and distort it’s original intentions to comfort our own version of God. But when we do this, aren’t we killing God and replacing Him with our own warped version so that we might be able to explain why things have been going the way they have. Because there is absolutely no way that all of this stuff could be our doing….right?
How do you wrestle with the scripture that states, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” when you’re praying daily for something and it never comes?
Do you feel like God gives you the desires of your heart? Why? Or Why Not?
There are a couple of ways you can look God giving (or not giving) you the desires or your heart: 1) you can turn around from the closed door and find an open door. Isn’t this feeling why we’ve always been taught, “when one door closes another one opens?”
The other outlook: Perhaps God is not trying to shut a door in your face to show you the correct path to take, but maybe He wants to see how persistent and passionate you feel to go through that door.
Maybe, just maybe, He wants you to push harder in the direction you’ve been asked to run.
Maybe He is trying to teach your persistence and endurance?
Maybe He is giving you a taste of what Job felt with the hardships of life to see if you’re faith is strong even when it’s shaken?
Romans 5:1 – 5 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
Don’t miss that Our Faith is backed by our Hope.
Many people have confused the idea of having faith in an answer to prayers and having faith in the Will of God.
Have we confused faith in God with faith in an answer or a solution?
I think these are two totally different outlooks. Faith in God requires patience. It requires an understanding that God is outside of our realm of thinking, our realm of time and therefore our realm of “timing”. We think of time as past, present, future, but all that we can see is the present. We can only see where we are at on the timeline at this moment. Think of it as you being a dot on a timeline. All you see is what today brings. God sees time in a whole different realm of understanding. He is like a man holding our timeline in His hand. He can move it up, down, left, right, etc. He can move it in any direction He wishes to see what He needs to see. He can see the past, present and future; the beginning and the end. We see a two dimensional world while God lives in a three dimensional world.
It has been said that we are a microwave society. We expect answers quickly. We want results now, not tomorrow and surely not next year but NOW.
I wonder if this mindset killing our faith in God?
Is it causing us to give up on Faith too quickly because we can’t see all that God is doing behind the scenes? We don’t see what needs to take place for three years before our next step can be taken. It’s hard to realize that one small step for us effects everyone around us and vice versa.
God constantly works behind the scenes.
Take a look at a few facts about the Birth of Christ and see how God worked behind the scenes to orchestrate everything with precise timing for the birth of Christ as well as how the times helped the quick spread of the gospel.
• Jesus was born in the reign of the roman emperor augustus. There are countless things we could talk about with Augustus. The fact that he set up a 12 day celebration called the advent of ceasar. He was known as a god who was sent to save the world from their sins.
• Before the birth of Christ was an extended period of wars which racked the Mediterranean region and gave Rome the power that it needed to gain control. After Rome gained control over the region political unity was no longer an issue which freed up traveling problems between nation to nation… it was all Roman territory.
• The Roman Government established roadways between provinces for quicker travel and trade, which would make an escape from the country easier -- if needed.
• Once the Romans came to power a unified language came into existence. Just think how difficult the gospel would be to spread if the language from region to region would have been different.
If Christ would have been born 200 years earlier, how would History have been different? Would all of the prophecies have been fulfilled? Would you be where you are today, reading this?
It takes us being alert and in tune with the spirit to understand and appreciate God’s timing. There isn’t an easy formula for doing God’s will, and we shouldn’t be too quick to think we grasp his plans. God has dramatically different plans for our lives. All of us are on different timelines and His way doesn’t always make the most sense or look the most appealing.
Consider:
• a young, teenage jewish girl conceives a child miraculously. At times God is ready for us to move before we think it is logical to do so.
• this teenager gives birth to a son who will save the world in a humble stable. Sometimes we think we’re unprepared to do something because we lack certain material luxuries. These luxuries may not be necessary to carry out what Christ wants us to do.
• Christ calls two young brothers, who were most likely around 15 years old, from a small fishing village of 300 people -- they were uneducated; they were mere fisherman (a lower occupation on the totem pole); they were what we would consider to be “the JV team”. We don’t always have to have the “proper” qualifications (by the world’s standards) to serve God. God changed the face of the world with the JV team!
What does faith in God look like?
How do we practice a trust in God’s timing?
Perhaps are prayers haven’t been answered yet because we aren’t to that scene of the movie yet.
Perhaps we aren’t focused on God.
Perhaps the situation around us isn’t ready for us to do what we feel called to do.
If we want to have a peace about God’s timing, we must be willing to give Him our time.
.:rustinklafka
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1 comment:
Wow, I think that there is a difference in hoping in God and hoping in hope. If we are truly followers in Christ, then we remember when Jesus told the people in his own town the story of a prophet who would go to some towns, but not to others. Some people would be sick, desperate in need of saving, but he was not called to go there. It wasn't their time, it was the time of Christ, of something bigger. We can't give up on GOd because what we prayed for didn't happen. If he is truly our spiritual father, should we get everything we pray for, just becdause we ask? Ask and you shall recieve, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. What if what people are asking for is actually more destructived then what God can provide? Sometimes his timing, his answers, even when he tells us no, are actually a mercy. I know that it is a hard thing to swallow when someone is sick, or when you really need a job, and it doesn't happen (hey, it took me like 5 months to find ANOTHER cashier job at ANOTHER grocery story, you better believe I am humble!). Single at 45 is tough, lonliness is rough to live with. Remaining faithful is central to a living GOd, and I wouldn't want to worship a God who didn't have my best interests anyways. Would you want to honor a being who gave you everything you ever asked for, whether or not you really needed it, or whether or not it would hurt you in the end? Some thoughts.....
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