Lately, I’ve been thinking about God’s timing. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about how His time table often doesn’t jive with mine. We live in a culture that has become accustomed to instant gratification. Want a meal now? Go through a drive through or pop something frozen into the microwave. Want to know something? There’s a video about it on YouTube. There’s nothing wrong with these things. I like a good McDonalds hamburger and I just started a YouTube channel. However, this culture of instant gratification has created a culture of impatience. That isn’t good.
All this impatience reaches every corner of our life, including our relationship with God. Often, when we pray for a solution to a problem, we want the solution to be in our way and on our time table. When that doesn’t happen, we often don’t understand what the heck God is up to and, in trying to help us, friends will sometimes quote Bible verses, which is good. Those verses are often taken out of context, which is bad. I want to look at one of those verses.
Jeremiah 29
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
When people are going through trying times, we sometimes will quote this verse, trying to convey the sentiment that better times are probably just around the corner. However, that was not the sentiment that God was conveying to the people of Israel here.
When God said this, the people of Judah were about to be conquered by Babylon and carried away into captivity that would last for 70 years. This was God’s punishment for the idolatry they had fallen into and His way of curing them of that idolatry. The pain had a purpose. They ended up coming back to a right relationship with God but it took time. God did bring them back out of captivity, after 70 years, once His purposes had been accomplished.
Fortunately, most of the seasons of pain we have to endure don’t last for 70 years but they do often last a long time, sometimes a very long time, sometimes even a lifetime. Just like when Babylon conquered Judah, the pain will last until God’s purposes are accomplished. And, just as then, we will end up better off as a result of the pain. We must do our best to remember that when we’re so bent on God doing things on our time table.
So, remember, God wants even better things for you than you want for you but He is looking at the eternal prospective and, if you think the way I too often think, you are probably taking a much shorter term prospective. Looking at the eternal prospective changes things. Be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). Trust Him and let Him teach you as He walks with you through the hard times. Better things may be just around the corner or maybe not. Regardless, if you are His child, things will be better than you can now imagine for eternity. Rest in that truth and take comfort from it.
