God is never late

I attended a prayer meeting at my home church last Sunday and as we prayed one of the men in my group said something that caught my attention. He said "You are never late". I run on my time, my goals, my schedule, my planning. I pray about those things often but I'm still fixated that God comes through in my timing. When things don't line up or happen according to the way I think they will I simply believe I've done something wrong instead of realizing that the wrong lies in not listening to God's timing, God's schedule, God's plan, God's goals and events. We're often prone to conclude that because we're doing "good" by helping at church, organizing something for a missions organization running an outreach program that they must all be things we should be involved with and should be successful in. I think our thinking is skewed. God never promises to fulfill our dreams, our hopes and desires of ourselves. He promises to fulfill the dreams, hopes and desires of the people IN HIM, focuced on him, consumed in the things He's focusing on. Those things really are and should be our hopes anyway.

But as I thought about God not being late it sparked something in me. As I read through the Bible, I have just currently finished the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah makes everything he prophesies seem so immediate. He condemns the people of Israel for not following God, for turning away on countless occassions and God Himself punishes them for the sins they've committed. I found myself thinking that I wish God was as immediate with me as Jeremiah's prophesies seem to be for the people of Israel. But as I dug deeper I realized the tremendous lag that often occurred between his tellings and the actual events. Months, years, sometimes days between Jeremiah asking for a word and God delivering, between Jeremiah saying something would come true and it actually happening. God is not a God that works on our time, because our time is not perfect. We think in the here and now, the immediate, unfortunately. God thinks in the eternal and sees the big picture, literally. Even with these truths, we are prone to getting frustrated and impatient, thinking God to be mistaken or not really in control. I'm realizing in my current life that if I'm thinking along that road then there are two possible scenarios going on: 1) I'm going on my timing and even though I say outwardly I'm giving it to God, inwardly I'm still in control and working things out on my own; and 2) I'm not praying about the situation enough to really know anything for sure.

Jeremiah knew God would answer, even when people put him at the bottom of a cistern to die, when they jailed him, when they hated him, when they loved him and admired his direct line to God. Jeremiah knew and expected God to answer his every question and asking. God is never late. Never. And if we expect Him to answer we will never have to be disappointed with His timing instead of ours.