Saturday, February 16, 2013

Five Bible Verses on God's Timing

1. Ecclesiastes 3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven

We know this verse that God's timing is perfect. Everything is done by his will and nothing happens by accident. There is a season for everything. There is a proper time for everything that happens whether on a global scale or in our personal lives. We know from Revelation that these things are planned and prophesied about. There is no error in any of it. Every single thing oh the Earth is done properly by God's plan! This is the basic starting point from where we must look.

2. Habakkuk 2:3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end-it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Here we see Isaiah hearing the message from God that he must wait for a vision. This vision was concerning Christ and the destruction of the church. Once again we see that Isaiah must wait for the appointed time to receive the vision. We see that in the vision is no lie. It is all truth. We get a good lesson about our lives here in Habakkuk. We often pray and pray for things to change in our lives. I know I often have. Such a simple message, yet so vital at the same time: If it seems slow: wait for it! We must wait on the Lord for his time for us to receive it. We can't know exactly why we must wait for a certain time. But we could probably assume that we will be more willing to receive it in the future. Our pride as humans often gets in the way of changes that ought to happen in our lives. Sometimes even after we want a change we can't seem to quite get to the point where we make the decision to change. And even then sometimes we make the decision to change yet we don't have the willingness in our hearts for that change to actually happen. Wait on the Lord and pray endlessly! This is what I did in a time of trouble. I had to wait a long time, years in fact, praying everyday for that change. But eventually it came, when I had had enough.

3. Isaiah 40:31 But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Once again we see in Isaiah that if we wait patiently on the Lord he will renew us in his timing. We are given some great imagery here. They shall mount up with wings like eagles! How glorious an image! They will be strong, as they can run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. It's a reward for our patience and trust in God. We often must wait in sin and destruction for some time for things to get better. Sometimes God will leave us without the strength to overcome a sin because he wants to teach us something. Remember God is always crafting our souls into better Christians, this is why we are taught to rejoice in our trials, for they make us better people.

4. Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

It's hard to be a good person sometimes. It's extremely hard early in our faith after being reborn in Christ. It doesn't always feel good to do the right thing. We have to listen to that voice of the holy spirit telling us that we ought to do the right thing. In our current culture of instant gratification this is often a strange concept to people. Many people will come into their new Christian life and do good, but very quickly they become disheartened because the excited high of it fades away. This is true, and it does. But in the long run our entire lives are changed by doing good. We weed out things in ourselves that cause us sadness and regret. God changes us through his grace. Along that path we become more and more loving. Eventually it feels great to do good things. We must not give up early on! This is often an exercise of forcing ourselves to do right thing after right thing, which is hard. But we know from God's promise here that we will reap good things. We will reap good things in this life, and eternal life in the next.

5. Matthew 24:13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Once again we see that one who holds strong to the rock that is God will be saved. This is often reminded to us in the book of Revelation, which predicts future events. We must not backslide in our faith. It's crucial to continue forward on this journey. We see time and again in scripture that God loves us and will give us good things if we just persevere on this journey. Is it easy? Not at all. Is it worth it? It's worth more than all the gold in the Federal Reserve. It's worth more than all the money and praise in the world. It's value is incalculable!