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Carli Jean |
God’s timing is
perfect. It is our own human sense of timing that causes us to wait
with frustration and impatience. Trying to rush God’s process can end
with less than favorable results. Even if it is not an outright
disaster, we can still end up with unintended consequences and much less
than we had hoped or planned for.
So, let’s talk about timing and outcome. With advances in modern technology, pre-term babies do more than just survive; many of them thrive just as if they had been full-term. But that is not always the case. Many pre-term babies face huge challenges that exist throughout their life’s journey.
When you bake a cake or loaf of bread, it is important to have all of the right ingredients, in order for them to bake properly and taste good. But the ingredients are only part of what makes the process work. If the cake or loaf of bread does not bake long enough at the correct temperature, it will come out looking good on the outside, but not done on the inside.
Metaphorically speaking, would you purposefully have a premature baby, just because you were tired of waiting for the 9-month gestation process to be over? Would you want to purchase a cake or loaf bread that looked appetizing from outward appearances; only to get it home and cut into it and find out that it was an inedible, gooey mess on the inside? I don’t think so!
I can tell you from personal experience that waiting on God’s perfect timing, for deliverance from a situation or for the desires of your heart, can be a challenge. Sometimes we are in a wilderness experience and we feel that God has abandoned us. At those times I have to remind myself of the saying that “the teacher does not speak during the test.” In fact, God is waiting to see how we will respond to the test.
I am also cultivating the ability to wait in patience. When we are at our most impatient, we would be well served by keeping in mind that God made Abraham a promise that through an heir from his own body, He (God) would make him a great nation with many descendents. Abraham was not a young man at the time of God’s promise, and he waited for 25 years until the promise was fulfilled when Isaac was born! Let us also be reminded that the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years before they finally entered the promised-land. Why did it take so long? They kept failing the test—they did not want to work within God’s process.
Perhaps another way to conceptualize the process is that some of us, “pre-term babies,” are not ready yet for what God has for us. We need our time in the incubator so that we can grow and mature, therefore preparing us to be whole and complete, with everything we need in order to fulfill God’s plan for our lives. Others of us are not quite ready for public consumption. Just like a cake or loaf of bread, all of the ingredients must be present in the right amounts for the recipe to be successful—you are just one ingredient in the recipe. God’s process is working to bring the other ingredients to the mixture to make the recipe perfect. Once the recipe is perfect, we need to spend time being refined in the heat of a desert wilderness experience, so that when we arrive in our promised-land, we will be ready for all that God has prepared.
What are you waiting expectantly for? Remember that delay is not denial. Learn the lessons that God has for you while you are waiting and working through the process. “For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord; thoughts and plans for welfare and peace, and not for evil; to give you hope in your final outcome.”
© 2012 All rights reserved. Marcia Davis Taylor
So, let’s talk about timing and outcome. With advances in modern technology, pre-term babies do more than just survive; many of them thrive just as if they had been full-term. But that is not always the case. Many pre-term babies face huge challenges that exist throughout their life’s journey.
When you bake a cake or loaf of bread, it is important to have all of the right ingredients, in order for them to bake properly and taste good. But the ingredients are only part of what makes the process work. If the cake or loaf of bread does not bake long enough at the correct temperature, it will come out looking good on the outside, but not done on the inside.
Metaphorically speaking, would you purposefully have a premature baby, just because you were tired of waiting for the 9-month gestation process to be over? Would you want to purchase a cake or loaf bread that looked appetizing from outward appearances; only to get it home and cut into it and find out that it was an inedible, gooey mess on the inside? I don’t think so!
I can tell you from personal experience that waiting on God’s perfect timing, for deliverance from a situation or for the desires of your heart, can be a challenge. Sometimes we are in a wilderness experience and we feel that God has abandoned us. At those times I have to remind myself of the saying that “the teacher does not speak during the test.” In fact, God is waiting to see how we will respond to the test.
I am also cultivating the ability to wait in patience. When we are at our most impatient, we would be well served by keeping in mind that God made Abraham a promise that through an heir from his own body, He (God) would make him a great nation with many descendents. Abraham was not a young man at the time of God’s promise, and he waited for 25 years until the promise was fulfilled when Isaac was born! Let us also be reminded that the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years before they finally entered the promised-land. Why did it take so long? They kept failing the test—they did not want to work within God’s process.
Perhaps another way to conceptualize the process is that some of us, “pre-term babies,” are not ready yet for what God has for us. We need our time in the incubator so that we can grow and mature, therefore preparing us to be whole and complete, with everything we need in order to fulfill God’s plan for our lives. Others of us are not quite ready for public consumption. Just like a cake or loaf of bread, all of the ingredients must be present in the right amounts for the recipe to be successful—you are just one ingredient in the recipe. God’s process is working to bring the other ingredients to the mixture to make the recipe perfect. Once the recipe is perfect, we need to spend time being refined in the heat of a desert wilderness experience, so that when we arrive in our promised-land, we will be ready for all that God has prepared.
What are you waiting expectantly for? Remember that delay is not denial. Learn the lessons that God has for you while you are waiting and working through the process. “For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord; thoughts and plans for welfare and peace, and not for evil; to give you hope in your final outcome.”
© 2012 All rights reserved. Marcia Davis Taylor
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