When was the last time that you heard someone talk about ’timing’ to you? Maybe they said something like, “now just isn’t the right time” or were more positive by saying, “time flies when you’re having fun.” While these two statements are different in their meaning they both carry with them a sense of time and speed. Life has an aggressive pace that we are beholden to.
Add to that idea issues and considerations of “God’s timing,” and the complexity of time, speed, and God’s will becomes an expectational-mixture that we can find hard to handle. You might just become bogged down in wondering if God hears you or is attentive to your needs.
After all, since ’time flies’ in our lives, that concept must also relate to God. He must be a prisoner of timing issues as well. Therefore the logic follows that God must not be paying close enough attention to your daily struggle in Lent because God is too busy being productive to notice you. Again, ’now is not the right time.’
But this is wrong thing to focus upon in Lent.
I wonder what might happen in your day if you stopped being worried about timing issues and instead focused on the fact that God hears you? These issues do not melt away suddenly because we remember that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Instead, as we notice these thoughts and feelings taking root in our minds, we can deliberately give them over to God and allow God the space the continually mold and shape us.
As an Irish proverb reminds us, “God made time, but man made haste.”
We are the ones who worry and fret about the time not being right. God does not operate like this.
So as the days of Lent come to their end, I hope that you will remember that God is not beholden to our formulas or our ideals. God does not respond as we do to presenting issues of our day. Rather God is with us in a more personal, more deliberate way. As such, God is never in too much of a hurry to spend some time listening to your heart and caring for your needs.
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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