Psalm 69:13
But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord, at an acceptable and opportune time;
O God, in the greatness of Your favor and in the abundance of Your lovingkindness,
Answer me with truth [that is, the faithfulness of Your salvation].
Great Psalm! Distress seems to be rising in the world right now. The realness of David in the Psalms is so refreshing to the soul. I’d encourage you to reread the Psalms during these coming days and weeks.
Understanding God and time is a bit beyond our ‘created’ abilities. God is outside of time. (Our minds go ‘tilt’) Of course He is also able to move inside of time. We the ‘created’ only know the finite and the forward direction of time. And we are often greatly distressed because of ‘time’ in our lives.
We often want God to move for us in a ‘matter’ of time. Especially when we feel urgency or anxiety. That David recognized that God knows the perfect, acceptable, and opportune ‘time’ for His answers to him… was wisdom. It is often said that God is never late. For us moving through time .. it often seems like He comes at the very last moment of our …need. The older I get I wonder if that really is the case? Mainly because I don’t have the ability to see the entire algorithm laid out with the exponential amount of choices and factors involved to see the best path God wants for me at that specific time. So many things could hinge on small choices. Yet because I don’t have the ability to see all of the possible timelines … then I must rely on …faith. Faith that He Himself has given to me. Again I must rely, trust, and wait (patiently) for Him to reveal what He wants me to do next and to wait for His salvation … in that moment. As I write this I am reminded of how much I know experientially how difficult that is.
Do you have the wisdom to pray like David did? Allowing God to choose the perfect time, the most opportune time for Him to answer you? Anyone who is a parent knows really young children want it NOW! Patience is a maturity attribute. Delayed gratification is not a concept known by much of the American populace right now. Technology has ingrained instant results into our lives and made our attention spans infinitesimally small and our patience an extremely rare thing.
Walking daily with the Holy Spirit will create His fruit in you. (Galatians 5:22-23) But these lessons and fruit are NOT easy. Many lessons require pruning healthy living parts of us to be cut off so that we can grow and produce the fruit He desires in our lives. I’ve found that the last fruit listed is actually the easiest and the first fruit listed is the most difficult. Self control is the easiest fruit to produce because it mainly just involves discipline and our will / chooser to be exercised and strengthened. He guides us to know when, how, where, and even sometimes why He wants us to wait and what He wants us to choose. Love (agape) is a combination of ALL of the fruit, and is … truly a God attribute that is given by Him, and in my opinion, beyond our complete understanding.
I’m finding time to be a great tool in the hands of the Creator. And that kind of power of being able to manipulate and move in time is not what Mankind should have control of, although there certainly have been a lot of stories with that thought / idea.
The more I realize His love for me – the more I am able to relax and wait… for Him to show me the way, and give me the answers that I seek. So when I’m really pushed with anxiety because of time … I remind myself …of His love for me.
Is this true for you too?