Learning to trust God’s timing (Part I)

By Engr Carlos Cornejo

This great spiritual lesson is from the talk of Rick Warren, the famous author of the book, “The Purpose Driven Life.”

Some of the stress that comes into our life is because of timing; either we are in a hurry or we want time to slow down in relation to the things we want or the goals in our life.  But one of the ingredients of success in life is to have the right timing because we can say or do the right thing at a wrong time and likewise say or do the wrong thing at the right time.  Success means doing the right thing at the right time.  A good comedian for example knows the right timing in saying the punchline.  A good leader not only knows what to do but also when to do it.  Marriage will have a better chance of success if both partners know how to wait until they are both mature enough to get married.  Timing is crucial in our life and so too with God.  The following principles below will increase our chances of success as well as decrease our worries, if we learn how to trust God’s timing in our life.

God Has a Timetable for Everything that Happens

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heaven.”  (Ecclesiastes 3:1) When Jesus Christ finally came to earth born of the Blessed Virgin Mary we read, “But when the right time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”  (Galatians 4:4-5)  Take note of the word “right time” in the passage you’ve just read.  It means whatever happens in the world and most especially for God’s faithful children, happens by God’s will or according to His timetable.  If we wonder how God has not answered our prayer yet, it’s because the right time for it has not yet come.  We will just have to keep praying.

God Does Not Tell Us the Details in Advance

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  (Ecclesiastes 3:11) God has a timetable for our life but He does not tell us the details of our future.  Why?  Because He is God and we are not.  This simply means we don’t have the intellectual capacity to know it much like a dog can’t read a book.  God does not give us the entire reason for not us not to know the future but He gives us some hints.  First because it could overwhelm us.  “You can’t handle the truth” as Jack Nicholson would say in the movie, “A Few Good Men”.  If we get to know our future, we would lose the thrill in our life and could also get shocked with the many trials we might undergo and would just give up on life.  God’s help or grace in tackling difficulties in our life is not given in advance but only on the day or days we experience it.  If we could see our future trials without God’s grace yet to undergo them, we will of course be afraid of it.   The second reason God does not allow us to see the future is because we might abuse it.  We could do worst things and commit a perfect crime if we know the future because we could anticipate what others would do and counter it.   But most importantly and the third reason why God does not tell us the timetable of our life, is to be able to trust Him.  That’s why God demands faith from us.  We have to trust His goodness, His love and that everything He does in our life is for our own good, especially spiritual good or holiness.  He is not in a hurry and is not late; His timing is perfect because He sees the entire picture: past, present and future.  He lives in eternity and is not bounded by time.   More of this in the next article.