Just in (God's) Time
Acting from a place of impatience doesn’t often heed the best results. I’m sure you’d agree. Yet, so many of us push past what might well be ‘the best’ down the line, in order to grab a slice of the ‘the now’.
I read something funny on Twitter recently…
“I’m not really sure what’s longer. A microwave minute or a treadmill minute?”
As funny as this statement is, there’s some real truth in it, I think. Take your food out of the microwave too early- you end up with a lukewarm dinner. Jump off the treadmill before you’ve worked out as much as you said you would- reap the health benefits and the results you want to see a lot slower than you’d like.
As Christians, we thankfully have a God who ensures that everything we need is provided right on time. His time. Someone in the Bible who trusted the accuracy of God’s timing so wonderfully, was Caleb.
“Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.” (Numbers 13:2)
Way back in the book of Numbers, Caleb was one of the men who was sent out to spy the land of Canaan. This was land which God had promised His people. In this land, there happened to be some pretty terrifying opposition in the form of the ‘Anakim’ (see Numbers 12:28). Most of the men Moses sent out were scared about this and decided that, although God might have promised this land, He must have overlooked a few things.
I can do this as well. I can be confident that God has called me to say/do/act upon something, only to feel slightly less sure when opposition and trial comes my way. Opposition can often mean that what’s on the other side of beating it is dangerous to the enemy. Don’t allow difficulty to keep you from moving forward.
Only Caleb and Joshua chose to trust that in spite of great opposition, they were well able to take the land. Because God had said they would. God looks favourably upon this faith and promises that he and his descendants will possess the land.
“But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.” (Numbers 14:24)
Reading this at first glance it seems as though from this point onward, things are really looking up for Caleb, right? I picture him and his people storming the gates of Canaan and driving out the opposition immediately. It’s only as we read on and land in Joshua, chapter 14, verses 6-14 that we realise that this promise came to full fruition forty-five years after it was promised.
What’s even more striking is that Caleb doesn’t appear to have adopted this ‘finally God, at last you’ve made good on your promise’ type of attitude. Rather, he seems to be thanking and praising God for keeping him alive and for keeping him strong. Even when what you’re waiting for is a long time coming, there is always something to give God thanks and praise for.
Perhaps you’re in a season of waiting right now? Certain that God has promised you something and yet to see the fruit. Trust Him. Praise and thank Him in the gap. But trust that He is at work even as you sleep.
“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)
God has not forgotten you. Know this and trust that even when we have other ideas, His timing is perfect.