God's Perfect Timing

Have you ever considered God's perfect timing in your life? Has it ever occurred to you that God has presented Himself in his perfect timing? You might be wondering what I'm trying to get at with questions like this. Well, I learned a long time ago that God does everything in our lives according to His time table and not ours. Now, He will allow us to forge ahead and do things or try to do things on our own time table but that doesn't usually work out.

Let's look at Abram and Sarai; God had promised Abram a child to carry on His name and be his heir (Ge. 15:1-5). About ten or eleven years later, Sarai told Abram that God was keeping her from having children and he should go in to her maid servant Hagar and she could have a child through her (Gen 16:1-2). And, Abram did and Hagar presented him with a son, Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old at that time and it had been eleven years after the promise which God had made with Abram to give him a son.

So, Sarai had come up with this plan and Abram went along and it resulted in Abram having a son but it was not a son of God's promise. They had become impatient and forged ahead on their own. Eventually, God did fulfill His promise and provided Abraham with a son, Isaac, and he was the son of the promise which God had made to Abraham. What Abraham had not understood about God and His promise was God was going to fulfill the promise according to His time table. He was going to wait until Abraham was 100 years old and incapable of fathering a child on his own. He was going to wait until Sarah was 99 years old and incapable of having a baby on her own. God was going to make this happen at a time when He and only He could get all the credit for this miracle. Both Abraham and Sarah knew only God could make this happen in their old age. It was all done according to God's time table.

We need to also take a look at this, God's timing, from another angle. Most Christians are familiar with the story of Joseph who was the favorite son of Jacob and Jacob was a son of Isaac. I'm sure most are familiar with the coat of many colors Jacob had given to Joseph and his brothers had a strong dislike if not hate for Joseph because they knew he was the favorite of their father. Joseph had a few dreams which he saw himself as ruling over his older brothers and he told them about these dreams.  This only added to their hatred for him; he was the next to the youngest and he was going to rule over them?

Through a series of events, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and he was eventually sold into slavery in Egypt. Anyone who knows this story (Gen 37, 39-50), knows the trials which Joseph endured in Egypt before God rose him to a position of second in charge for the entire nation of Egypt. He was a household servant for Potiphar whose wife attempted to sexually seduce him and then blamed him for trying to assault her. All this landed him in prison for about 13 years. But God continued to bless Joseph and Joseph was obedient to God and waited.

Pharaoh's chief butler and his baker were in prison with Joseph and each had a dream and Joseph interpreted both of their dreams. The interpretation for the chief butler was he would be restored to his duties and the baker would be killed. The events of the dream happened exactly as God had interpreted through Joseph. Joseph asked the chief butler to remember him to Pharaoh and the butler said he would but he didn't. It was when Pharaoh had a disturbing dream that the butler then remembered Joseph and informed Pharaoh of his ability to explain what the dream meant.

Joseph was called out of the prison and explained to Pharaoh that only God could explain the meaning of the dream. Joseph then explained what Pharaoh had seen in his dream and what it meant (Gen 41). The dream was about 7 years of great plenty followed by 7 years of famine. Joseph suggested a plan for Pharaoh to use in which to prepare for the famine and how to get through it. Pharaoh decided there was no one better than Joseph to make it all happen and promoted him to his second in charge.

This famine was so great that Jacob and his family were feeling the effects of it. His brothers made two trips to Egypt to buy grain from the Egyptians and spoke directly to Joseph and didn't recognize him but he recognized them. It was after the second trip to Egypt and a series of events which Joseph had over seen, he presented himself to his brothers and told them who he was. It had been many years since they had sold him into slavery and he was dressed as an Egyptian.

But one of Joseph's dreams was about his brothers bowing down before him and that's exactly what they had done before he told them who he was. He was at a position in which he was a ruling authority over them although he never used that over them when they went to Egypt to survive the famine. But what was the big picture here concerning God's perfect timing? The nation of Israel was God's chosen nation; it was the nation from which the messiah would come from and He couldn't allow that nation of 70 people die off. He used Joseph to save the nation of Israel from this famine and preserve it for God's use .

 Then his brothers came and threw themselves down before Joseph. “Look, we are your slaves!” they said. But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. Gen 50:18-20

How many years had it been since Joseph was sold into slavery? How many trials had he been through? How many years in prison? And all this time, Joseph continued to trust in God and wait on Him. How many of us today would be willing to do that? We might hold out a few months and then it would be time to start finding a way out. God knew from long before Joseph was even born what His plan was for him.

Joseph never forged ahead on his own; the closest he might have come was when he asked the butler to tell Pharaoh about him which he did but not right away. God was Joseph's only source of fellowship while he was in prison and his source of faith and trust. But he waited on God patiently.

Allow me to share a couple of these occurrences in my life and they are minor in comparison to what Joseph went through but still show God's perfect timing. I can think of two recent trips I made to a Home Center for certain materials for home repair. Now, I'm not the youngster I used to be and with another condition I am experiencing, I can't lift the way I used to. On two separate occasions, I had the items on a flat cart and was able to do that on my own but was wondering how I was going to be able to get them into the truck.

On both occasion, as I was getting ready to attempt the lift, a man came by and offered to help. You might not find this so unusual but if we really think about it, it was God's perfect timing to have those two guys on two separate occasions, walk by and offer to help me. On both occasions, I had asked god to send someone and He did.

When we moved from Pennsylvania to Texas, I hired two guys to load a moving truck but it took longer than was planned and they bailed on me. That left me to load, by myself, some of the heaviest items left. I had loaded a few things when a young man, who lived next door, came home from work. I didn't really know him but as he pulled into his driveway, I found myself asking God to send him over to help. I couldn't believe it when he got out of his truck and came over to offer his help. The guys who bailed had not been gone that long when he came to offer his help. Had they stayed until he came home, he would have seen the help and more than likely thought I didn't need the help. That was God's perfect timing.

One last thing; when we decided to make that move, I decided to sell or give away a set of older golf clubs I had. I couldn't get anyone to just take them so those clubs ended up in Texas. About a year ago, I decided to try once again to either sell them or give them away but there were no takers. Last week, I was getting some Christmas decorations out of the shed and there were those clubs, in the way again, and I decided to try to give them away. I had no takers the first week but finally, today, I received a text and then a call from a man who said he wanted them.

We made the arrangements where to meet and when he showed up, I found out that he is a Christian who likes to play golf but has not been able to afford to buy a set of clubs. When he told me this, I knew God had been working on His time table with these golf clubs. Now, I'm sure there are some who will say that God has bigger things to be concerned with than a set of old golf clubs. But if He knows the number of hairs on each of our heads, then He is a God of finite things and nothing is too big or too small for Him to be concerned with in our lives.

This man had not forged ahead and went into debt by buying an expensive set of clubs and God knows his heart and blessed him with these clubs. The man was happy and didn't even look at them or inspect them. He threw them into the back of his car and was satisfied. When these things happen in my life, when I know it is God, I am blessed to know He is always there for us regardless how insignificant it might appear to someone else.

And, we can't talk about God's perfect timing without mentioning His son Jesus Christ. At just the right time, God's time, He sent his son to die in our place. That was God's perfect timing for us because without Jesus dying on the cross for our sin, there is no salvation and we all spend eternity suffering in hell. For those of who are saved, God saved us at just the right time, in His perfect timing.