If we collected all the clocks in the world, all the wristwatches and alarm clocks and cell phones and every grandfather clock and wall clock and mantle clock and all the sundials, and every other kind of clock we could imagine or conceive, and put them in a room together and locked the door, what would happen?
The same thing that always happens when we try to do this (okay, maybe we haven’t tried to do this, but I know I put my wristwatch went somewhere):
We’d live an eternal day!!! Time would stop, finally, just like we want it to. No more aging. No more late arrivals. We’d come and go as we’d please. And best of all, we wouldn’t have to pay any more parking tickets!
Well, until that day comes, I have something I wanted to share about the world we do live in, one that is truly a “timeless” world, one of patience and waiting. I’m talking about the joy of waiting on God.
There is incredible and beautiful mystery in God, in His nature, in His timing, in how He has ordered His universe, how He can stop the sun if He chooses (Joshua 10:12-14) or turn back the sun for so that its shadow climbs back down a stairwell ten steps (Isaiah 38:7-8). No one really understands the timelessness of heaven, or how God’s timing is perfect even when it seems, from our end, it is delayed. How can a day be like a thousand years, and a thousand years be like a day? How can those billions and billions and billions of stars be so far away, and yet, so close?
In God, the universe is ordered perfectly; everything is. Just waiting on God gives Him the opportunity to reveal to each of us who He is at heart, this great mystery that resides in His soul, the passionate life of His Spirit. We wouldn’t know, unless we waited for Him to reveal Himself and His Word.
God uses His sense of timing throughout our lives. In Habakkuk, He tells us “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
In all the miracles He’s performed, they have all come at just the right time. His Words always come. They come on their own, from His mouth, and do exactly what He wants them to do.
In His timing, His Words end wars, heals broken wounds, mends relationships, restores fallen souls, nurses, blesses, praises, celebrates, extends, frees. It’s all because of His love, expressed to us through His timing.
God’s love and His miracles and His timing and His holiness all come together in His Son. Jesus is God’s greatest miracle. He came at just the right time, performed the perfect miracles, spoke with such grace and beauty that He turned inside out the majesty of the cosmos, restored justice, vanquished death, all in His Father’s timing.
I’ve had many prayers that seem to have not been answered, but then again, I don’t control them. Once they leave my lips, they’re God’s. They’re for Him to decide, and He alone is the one who will answer them, if He chooses. I can’t say that all my prayers have been answered. But I can say that if they are answered, they’ve come to me in my greatest need, at just the right time.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Isaiah 64:3-4, because it encourages me to wait on God, and to believe that He keeps His promises:
“For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.”
Sometimes it’s hard for me to wait for God. It seems like He hasn’t heard me. But the longer I wait, the better it gets. So God, have mercy on me. Surprise me!
