God's Timetable

This week I was thinking about God's timing and His plans for each of us. I am constantly thinking about this and trying to surrender to Him. For the last year or so--or maybe my whole life--I feel that surrendering to God's timing means that I have to be patient. Waiting for what I want, or waiting to find out what God's plan is, or waiting on other people is extremely difficult for me--or has been, until recently. Maybe it is all that meditating, but I have begun to be pretty Zen about it. So much so that I now wonder about the flip side. I realized that there have been just as many times in my life when God has asked me to do something faster than I felt ready. And I wonder if I have been as willing to jump in without fear or hesitation?

When God is operating in this mode with me, He usually gives me the inspiration about what He wants me to do at 10:30 p.m. the night before. Maybe this is so I don't have too much time to think and get nervous about it.

At times like this, this is how my discussions with God have gone: "No way. You want me to do what? Oh Man. Really? Why? I can't do it. I don't want to do it." This is usually followed by a calm feeling of "Yes you can, I will help you."

Now that I think about it, though, even at the times when the inspiration seemed sudden and I felt unready, it may have actually been the end of a long period of active waiting, and not sudden at all. Hmm. I will have to think more on this.

C.S. Lewis only sort of jokingly said in The Problem of Pain, that it's pretty easy to know when inspiration is from God because it directly contradicts what we want. I know plenty of women who wanted to serve a mission, but felt literally pushed by some force into their future husband's path. A friend of mine said that right after she had her first baby (it was a difficult pregnancy with nausea so severe she blacked out) she felt like she was supposed to have another baby right away. She didn't say anything, but when her husband said the same thing to her, she admitted that she felt it, too. Who knows why these first two souls needed to be so close in age, but I admire them for their faith.

I don't always know why the Lord tells me to do stuff until much later, but when I do get the A-ha I can't say enough about how great God is. Once I heard a guy get up and bear his testimony about how every now and then the veil lifts a little for him and he gets a glimpse of how "not random" everything is. I will never forget that testimony. It made perfect sense to me. It is in those moments that I can say to myself and to everyone with the utmost confidence that "Everything is going to be okay."

I am in the confidence of more than one friend who has, for the first time, decided to ask God about the timing of their next baby. Even though they have received their answers, they still look a little scared. So, I just thought I'd put this out there, no matter what your situation, everything is going to be okay.