Friday, November 14, 2014
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Hey I love Christmas decorations and I love Christmas music and I love Christmas spirit! Not so much in October. There's actually something irritating about Christmas celebration long before Thanksgiving. So, when the decorations go up, and the advertisements start about, oh I don't know...eight weeks before Christmas, well, in our family we just kind of ignore it all. I came in awhile back, and I said, "Hey, the Thanksgiving lights are up at the mall!" Well good night it's way too early for Christmas right? I'm going to die hard on this thing. Listen, Christmas is beautiful, my favorite time of year. But it's beautiful in its proper season. It just doesn't feel right when it comes too early. It's like delivering the punch line of a joke. Timing is everything.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Timing is Everything."
Our word for today from the Word of God, we're in Ecclesiastes 3, and I'll begin reading at verse 1. "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven." Well, now guess who decides what time it is? Chapter 3, verse 11, tells us "God has made everything beautiful in its time." Sounds like Christmas and celebrating Christmas; it's beautiful in its time.
He's doing that for you right now. With that answer, you know, that you've been waiting for. But He's not going to get there early and He won't get there late. And have you noticed that God's timing is almost always longer than ours? Hey I think it should be now, but the perfect timing – God's timing – when everything will be ready for you and you'll be ready for it, that always comes later than when I think it should be.
Like a pastor who was found by his secretary pacing back and forth in his study. She said, "Pastor, what's wrong?" He said, "well I'm in a hurry, and God isn't." well that's like most of us. But listen, God's timing is always right.
I guess an expectant mother would maybe wish that she didn't have to be pregnant for nine months, you know, six months might be okay. And as she gets near those closing months of her pregnancy, it gets a little more burdensome. But you don't want that baby to come too early, even if you're tired of waiting, and if you're tired of carrying the burden. You want preemie or full-term?
God is waiting to give you His answer because a premature answer wouldn't survive. Wouldn't be healthy. Why is He waiting? Well, maybe He's preparing you for a person, or maybe He's preparing a person for you and one of you isn't ready yet. Maybe He's preparing you for a position, or a position for you, or a place for you. But something isn't ready yet. Maybe He is in the process of building you into some powerful, Christ-likeness, but it's taking time for those traits to develop.
But see, because you don't know what His outcome is going to be, your uncertainty is causing you to be dependent, and your dependency gives you great faith and draws you closer to God. It's the unknowns that draw us the closest to Him. A quick answer would stop that process of what you're becoming right now because you're having to wait. It isn't time yet. He'll make it beautiful in its time. So don't lose hope because you're waiting! A postponed answer is not a canceled answer or a denied answer. God is waiting right now for the season that's best for you, and for the season that will best display His love and His power. Your answer is coming right on time.
Christmas is beautiful in its season, and so are the answers and interventions of God in your life. But timing? Yeah, timing is everything.