God's Timing

God's Timing

6/27/21

Humans have an ugly problem with timing, or most of us do with hardened schedules being the stable foundation of our lives.  How many times have we followed such routines and come to find out that even though our schedule may say one thing another actually takes place.  Routines become habits and habits become dependencies upon which we allow to become dictations instead of suggestions.  So, when things do not pan out as we believe or what we have been told we become angry and then doubt the further words from those sources.  The methods and calculations that we place of God and His timing are presented in the same way, we continually place God on human timelines which is a bad order to place God within.  God always sees His timeline and nothing else and it is this pattern that He wants to remind us that He is in control of everything and not you or I, another concept that humanity struggles to deal with.

For as long as I can remember, the jobs that I have had always gave a schedule out to guide when and where I would work.  Sometimes the schedule would be made for a month at a time and other times it would be made for two or three months at a time.  For the most part, this type of future knowledge is a good idea for it allows people to make plans for time off but on occasion, those time-off plans are messed up with sicknesses, deaths, or any other incident that would require schedule changes.  We can live with these short-term switcheroos and gladly help out a fellow coworker in need.  But how do we feel about the times when something that has been guaranteed to occur doesn't according to how we look at things or in a certain known pattern?  It is these times that make our minds and hearts send questions to our life processes and potentially stir up anxiety levels.

What does this type of scenario tell us about ourselves?  And if we include God and what He says to us into the equation, how do we justify things when they do not go as planned, or at least how we perceive them to be planned?  These questions if lingered long enough will definitely become doubts which will then lead to deeper issues of separation from God more likely.  Waiting upon the Lord to do what He says He will do in a society that moves faster every day will be difficult if our hearts and minds are not totally fixed in His Word. To be totally fixed upon God takes us into a different place than what the world operates in, it shapes us to leave our earthly beliefs and directs us into the truth about us not being from here but just passing through.  We see this activity in Jeremiah and when we understand that God may not always show up on our timeline, He does have His own timeline and when the time is just perfect, His presence abounds.

The passage for this article demonstrates that when God says something He will do it, but not according to what mankind believes.  Patience is not many of our strong points and this truth is evident every day.  Impatience is a deadly force that we listen to when waiting on God should be the course of action.  Our passage is Jeremiah 1:1-3, a simple yet informative passage that shows us exactly what it means to go through God's timing.

Jeremiah 1:1-3

"The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.  To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.  It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month."

Hebrew

"[These are] the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.  The word of the LORD came to [Jeremiah] in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah  son of Amon king of Judah, and through the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile."

This passage seems to be just one of those chronicles of time that the Bible has been famous for, another portion where we read it but do not pay too much attention to, some may even call it boring and skip over it all together.  But it holds a key presence in how God works and how we should consider just how gracious God is in that He gives people time to repent before He must act His judgment upon them and on their land.  We cannot ignore the fact that are some serious timelines that pass through these three verses and all three of them reflect upon one theme, and that is God's Word comes forth through Jeremiah about the impending devastation of Judah.

One of the signs of impatience is that we begin to relax our hesitations and worries toward what we have heard to be true.  Right at the moment, there are prophecies about President Trump that have stirred many emotions in our lives.  Through our impatience, we have dropped off the level of intensity - further - and have publicly and loudly criticized those prophets and people who have declared the Word of the Lord in this matter as liars, or that they missed what God was "actually" saying.  This type of belief is exactly what Jeremiah faced each day of his life as a prophet.  God asks a question here: how much of our jobs do we get accomplished when we live in such an impatient state and how much are we truly waiting on God during this time?  That answer is easy, for not much to both portions of that question.

We must remember that in the days of Jeremiah there were prophets that did not have the faith in God that they needed, nor did they want to have faith in God either.  They were the popular prophets who always said good and kind things about God, and how God would protect them and never allow things to occur to the people or to the land.  These prophets were many and constantly contradicted what God was REALLY saying to the people through Jeremiah.  These other prophets were present for show only and truly acted as thieves for their words of worldly comfort served as stealing of what was coming to the people.  This setting provides us with a great picture of thievery and how if it is not dealt with adequately and quickly shall grow into a presence of great magnitude that with having the authority to destroy an entire nation.

Once again, we have the picture and related question of: Are our hearts fully committed to what God has ordained for our lives, or are we distracted from what we are waiting for in the first place?  In this passage, we should clearly see that Judah's heart was waiting on what the popular prophets were saying and not what God was telling them, a situation that is so attractive in our lives today as well.  These suitable words reassured the people of Judah that they could continue their ways without the fear of any retribution from God and that what Jeremiah was saying while true, was not completely accurate.  They placed their hopes and trusts on the enemies around them to be easy on them and to shy away from them, you know, be on their same level of existence.

Jeremiah never waivered from what God shared with him to say to Judah.  This process was not an overnight Word from God, it too was the original Word and stayed the same as time went along.  How long did Jeremiah proclaim such a message?  I am glad you asked because it is the focal point of what God wants us to hear today.  As you read these three verses there are some kings mentioned, all of them were sons of Josiah.  One may believe that this might not be a long period of time but in reality, it was.  When you add all of the reigns of these kings together, it comes up to 53 1/2 years forty of which were actual days of Jeremiah's speaking, and when you put it in these terms his preaching of what God said was longer than the Children of Israel were in the wilderness.  This should also tell us something, that the Children of Israel did not learn much while they were walking in the wilderness for all that time because if they had learned anything it had been put aside again for this time around it was a longer period of time before God had to step in and do something about the direction of their hearts.

The end of verse three gives us the ultimate plan of God upon Judah.  There is no way possible that anyone could say that God did not give Judah plenty of time to change their hearts for there was an incredible amount of time for this process to occur, but one should also recognize that when God says something He already knows what the possibilities will be, a truth that should strike fear into every heart.  Also, when we look at the timeframe in these three verses, we must consider that this amount of time was approximately an entire life span of a person, some lived to be what we would consider being as old folks but not the majority.  God allowed over half a century to pass until He fulfilled His Word, Jeremiah never stopped preaching the truth and doing his best to get the people of Judah to turn from their ways.

Today, the Church has fallen to the wayside through listening to what is popular instead of what is Truth, and for those who are spiritually watching and listening they understand these two statements to be correct.  Today, just as in the time of Jeremiah, many people label unpopular prophets as liars, scoundrels, trouble makers, or any other derogatory labels in order to "put them in their place".  This concept now being presented by the Church is a result of laziness in believing in the Word of God and fulfilling its promises and truths concerning God's Son.  Judah portrayed the exact same sin and over a period of time began to apostatize God and form their own futile and weak, feeble religion with their own personalities their deities.  What is the difference today?  Of course, we would expect this type of activity from the world but from the commissioned Church of Jesus?  Man, humans are so predictable sometimes.

How do we view those people who are visibly on fire for God?  How many of us shy away from them when they approach us or how about, we turn and tell others around us that they are crazy and not to be taken literally?  I believe that a great number of us fall into that category.  It is this type of acting that proves God is alive and will show anyone who wishes how things will become when His prized creations do not live for Him or believe in His Word.  Church, stop for a moment and take a look at our heart, it is sick and dark in color with a disease that pours out from our lives with an eternal stench that no one can deny.  God shall strike us due to the fact that we have chosen the ways of the world instead of HIm, and this striking shall be more difficult and thorough than what the world shall receive for a wicked servant God cannot stand.

I have no idea when this strike shall occur, nor do I understand what kind of method God shall use in order to crumble our selfish temple; however, I DO know that He shall do this someday soon.  No, I am not saying that it shall occur tomorrow, next week, or even next year but it could be, for God's timing is His business and in that moment of reckoning we shall all face the music.  Humans have an absurd image of control when it comes to God and life abundantly, we believe that we should constantly use the gifts of God for ourselves and shun those who need them a gross injustice when it comes to the law of sowing and reaping.  The portion we forget about is that if we do not share what God gives us then we place our lives and eternal placement in danger according to the judgment of God.  Jeremiah preached this truth to Judah, they ignored it.  Many preachers and prophets today have preached the exact same thing, and we too have ignored it.  So, yes, God's timing is on His watch and only He shall know the time and place to set our destruction in motion and just how severe "Jerusalem" shall fall.

DLB