{Be Real} God is Never Late

That was the phrase I read on top of the paper, as it was handed to me by my connect group leader.

I still remember it to this day. The first time I connected with people in this new church. And I was handed this as my first lesson.

You know when you read something and it stares back at you?

Well, “God is never late” stared back.

I think it had to stare me down because of all the preconceived notions I have had with God and His timing. All of the impatience that had been in my heart, came bubbling to the surface in that moment.

I wanted to believe that God is never late – but truthfully, it feels like He is sometimes.

Then, last year, I sat in an auditorium with Christian singles – men and women of all ages – and the speaker was talking about the timelines we create in our mind. She spoke of her timeline for meeting a husband. “Meet a man at 24, date for a few years, get married at 27, be a mother by 30.”

I was awestruck. She was saying my timeline out loud into a microphone.

The timeline that hadn’t come true for me.

There’s nothing more humbling than a moment like that. Someone professing preconceived notions you have had for your life, and the weight of expectation we have for God, out loud.

I think saying it out loud carries a freedom. We need to admit our timelines to God. Because I think God already knows we have them. We create expectations for Him of when He needs to move, and how.

Where do these expectations come from, anyway? And what is this idea of a timeline for our lives really about?

We create timelines when we compare our journeys to other people. Especially people who are close to us. It’s easier to view our lives and our journeys as a parallel to another’s experience – than to walk in the woods and realize our journey is really our own. Somehow it seems less isolating to create a timeline for God and for ourselves.

But in light of eternity, the idea of timeline takes on a whole new perspective.

“But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

-2 Peter 3:8-9

We can hardly comprehend it.  God’s hand is over time and He is both outside time and inside of it with us. He can see all the details, the intricacies of the woven fabric of humanity and time and space. But we can’t.

And so we fear time.

We fear all the unknowns.  We fear getting stuck in our lives. And sometimes, we think having these timeline “goals” will help us not to get stuck, to maintain that sense of control.

But God knows that fear shuts us down, closes us in. It closes our hearts from the way He wants to work.

In order to truly have faith and trust in God, we have to throw away the timeline altogether. Confess it to God and just let it go. And it’s worth it.  It’s worth it to trust.

Faith and trust in God always opens our hearts, and opens our lives – to more possibilities.

Because only in intimacy with Him do we understand the process of His hands working on us. And the time it takes for Him to complete that process. I’ve realized lately that God is never about quick fixes.

Just like an artist, God takes the time to mold us and our hearts. God always chooses to work close to us, in a way that is unique to our calling, our heart, and our path.

I was recently reading in “The Artisan Soul” a comparison of God’s hand on us to the hand of a potter:

“Sometimes the hand of God presses against us and creates unwanted discomfort. Like clay in the hands of a potter, we may feel God’s pressing against us as intrusive and disruptive, but we must never lose sight of the fact that God never chooses to give up on us or to put us on an assembly line and treat us as a commodity. He always presses against us. His process is always hands-on. And with each of us he avoids standardization, working to form each person into a unique image of God.”

– Erwin McManus

When we realize the care that God is putting in to mold our lives, our hearts can open to His timing. Because we realize that anything God gives, or withholds, or waits to give us – it’s all for our good. He cares too intimately to just fix us once and for all and move on. He is crafting our lives, and the beautification process, the forming into His image, takes time.

We are the work of His hand. (Isaiah 64:8) And only the Master artist knows how much time we need to mold, bend, stretch, and grow.

We can trust, always. That even in the areas where we don’t understand – God is never late.

 

“But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD;
I say, ‘You are my God.’
My times are in Your hand…”

-Psalm 31:14-15