Impecable Timing

I can't help but admire good timing. In jokes, commercials, music, the internal combustion engine. There's no substitute for great timing. Have you ever considered God's timing? I mean, He's never late and rarely early (according to my expectations). He's always right on time. Yet the back-story is often even more intriguing. "Let me s'plain; no, there is too much, let me sum up":

Recently, I have come into a new-found settledness in life. I'm sure many factors are at play, but not the least of which is a marital book my wife and I have been reading at over the last year. You know, it's one of those "good things we need to do" that gets marginalized by real life so it takes an eternity to plow through. After some frank encouragement by my wife the other day that my life priorities were - once again - out of whack, I picked up the book again, mostly to prove her wrong...and say I'd read more than she had.

What I read was a mirror of myself, a brutal spiritual autopsy that helped to tweeze the putrid motivations of my heart from the candy wrappers I conceal them in. In that exam, I found the only thing within me worth holding onto was Christ Himself.

In that conclusion came release. Peace and contentedness. I don't have to measure up, I just have to move aside. I don't need to search for the next fix, I just need to seek His face. I don't need to constantly be searching "over there" for His perfect-er will, when Life - with a capitol "L" is "right here, right now" (to quote a little Van Halen...or U2...or Fatboy Slim).

I couldn't have known how perfect the timing would be. 24 hours later I had an epiphany, of which I've previously written. And in another 24 hours I stepped into a situation which would have boiled my blood and incited me to "spittin' tacks," as my mother would say. But that day, I was in His peace. I didn't retaliate. I didn't have to suppress my temper, it wasn't at play. It was as though the Prince of Peace had taken up residence within me. He had.

What timing! What if my wife hadn't chided me to prioritize? What if I hadn't responded by diving back into the book? What if I'd gone to bed instead of contemplatively to the moonlight the next night? What if, over a year ago, my mother hadn't of sent us that book? What if she hadn't attended the conference where this author was speaking 18 months ago and purchased it? What if the author hadn't committed to take the speaking engagement 2 years ago? What if he hadn't published the book 8 years ago?

Do I mean to suggest that God's has had plans in the works to affect His changes in our hearts for days, months, years and even decades before we see the fruit of them in our lives?

Yep.

Galatians 4:3-5 says, "In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."

Impeccable Timing.