Time (Part I)

I find myself thinking about time a lot. "I don't have enough time." "What is taking him such a long time?" "I wish I could magically make more time." "What time is it?" "I wonder if I will finally be able to do it this time." "How much time is this going to take?"

Here's the funny thing about time. It doesn't really exist. At least, not as concretely as we think it does. Time is just a measure of change. Our twenty-four hour days, our seven day weeks, our 52 week years... that's all just a construction we have made up to measure change. Just like feet, inches, meters, and miles don't actually exist outside of the human mind, time is another thing we humans have made up to help us make sense of our experience in an ever-changing world.

Well, God doesn't change. Why then do we expect God to conform to our notions of time? But we do, don't we? I know I do! I pray, "God, let me get pregnant in the next three months." "God, please let me see growth in my SWITCHgroup over the next month." "God, why is it taking so long for him to find a job?" "God, if you could just send ten more leaders in the next month, then we would know our ministry has your favor."

It's not wrong to be specific, or to pray for things to happen in a specific time. It is wrong, though, to assume that if God doesn't work within our timing, he isn't listening or we are doing something wrong or he doesn't want that for us. If there is one thing I have seen throughout my life, it is that God's timing is PERFECT and usually not at all what I expect.

I did not plan to get rejected from the college in Chicago I planned to attend during the same month that I started "talking" to the guy I was eventually going to marry, which resulted in me going to OSU. I didn't plan to get engaged at 18 and married at 19. I didn't plan to be able to graduate a semester early so we could live with my parents in OKC while my husband was student teaching. I didn't plan to be just out of my first trimester (which was awful) just in time for us to move, so that I wouldn't have to deal with that transition while I was feeling all yucky and exhausted.

But God did plan those things for me. At those perfect times when I needed them to most. Those are just some big examples, but I see his perfect planning monthly, weekly, daily even. I am slowly learning to trust him to work in my life at the perfect moment, even as I grow impatient and frustrated as things do not happen when I want them to.

What kind of time constraints are you putting on God? Where do you need to trust his timing in your life? I dare you to go ahead and see if he won't just pull through right when you need him. :)