Right On Time

We live in time. 60 minutes an hour. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 52 weeks a year. For as many years as God chooses to grant us. But our God is not bound by time. He is eternal, and time is in Him. Often, time seems to move slowly, especially when we are living in the middle of uncomfortable circumstances. It is then that we must remember that God is a God of perfect timing.

Rudyard Kipling, describing the key questions of investigation, penned:

I keep six honest serving men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When,

And How and Where and Who.

While I have asked all of these questions many times myself, it seems that “Mr. When” gets a lot of attention. Maybe it is because of our instant gratification society. Maybe it is just because I am so impatient. One thing is sure:

God’s timing is often much different than mine.

The Psalms are full of reminders to wait on the Lord. Why must we wait? We are often early but He is never late. God is always right on time. And the victory is not found merely at the end of waiting. It is in learning that God is all sufficient while we are waiting.

Joseph spent many years in pits and prisons. In difficulty, it is natural to ask, “why?” But when it seems the trouble will never go away we begin to ask, “when?”  Right on time, the Lord brought him out of bondage and placed him on the throne in Egypt. The waiting period was not wasted time. God was preparing His servant.

Moses spent forty years on the back side of the desert in Midian. But right on time, the Lord sent him to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage. The silent years were not wasted. God was preparing His leader and His people.

A remnant of faithful believers kept looking for the Messiah. Four hundred years with no word from God. Four hundred years with no arrival of the Messiah. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus came right on time. He always does.

Someday, time as we know it will end. Christ will come, and time will be swallowed up in eternity. There is a great deal of speculation about when the Lord will return. While I am not sure of the day, I am sure that He will be right on time.

It is this principle that gives me peace day by day. The same God who set the time of my birth and the time of my eventual appointment with Him has set times for everything in my life. I can wait on Him because I know that He will be right on time.

Related Study: The Lord was with Joseph | Study Page

The Lord was with Joseph – Study Page

About Scott Pauley