From
time to time we each have experiences which
impress us indelibly with how uncanny God's
timing is in our life. I had such an experience
one autumn morning a few years ago.
At about 11:00 a.m., volunteers
from a local shelter stopped by our home to pick
up a bed we were donating to their mission. The
driver backed his truck up our steep driveway and
stopped at the top where we had left the bed for
them. I walked outside, spoke with the men
briefly, then went back in the house. After
quickly loading the bed in the truck, they
climbed back in and began to drive away. By now I
had walked to the bedroom in the rear of our
home.
Suddenly I heard a crackling
noise like a small thunderclap, and our house
went dark. I instantly feared the worst.
I rushed to the living room
window, from where my worst fears were confirmed.
I could see the overhead power lines which feed
into our one-story home draped over the truck,
now stopped at the end of our driveway. Its
trailer had snagged these low-hanging wires and
pulled them loose from the side of our house.
Immediately I panicked and began
to imagine a number of imminent disasters. The
men in the truck were in danger of electrocution
if they stepped out of the cab. If these live
wires dropped to the ground, they would charge
our front yard with high voltage, endangering
anyone coming near our home. It could be
hours--or days!--until the power company came to
make repairs. Meanwhile I'd have to keep watch
and warn children and other unsuspecting souls
not to touch the exposed lines.
My heart sank, for I had much to
do that day, and here I was stuck with this
obstruction in the driveway, making it impossible
for me to leave. I couldn't even phone for help,
since the truck had ripped down the phone lines
as well.
The men in the truck, however,
could see things from a different perspective.
The driver stepped out of his cab and walked up
the street. Fortunately the exposed wires
dangling near the truck were not actually
touching its metal, so he wasn't harmed. I
assumed he had gone to make a phone call and
carefully walked out into the driveway to await
the news. He returned very quickly and assured me
that help was on the way--immediately.
He explained that service
personnel from Potomac Edison, the power company
in our area, were working just up the street,
trimming tree linate off of power lines. A minute
later their cherry-picker pulled up in front of
our house, and more men in yellow hard hats than
I could count jumped out and descended on our
yard. Within a short time the severed wires were
reconnected, and the phone line as well. Lights
came back on, the men from the power company
drove away and the mission workers left. It was
as though nothing had happened--like a scene out
of Cat in the Hat.
I was left dumbfounded, wondering
at the sheer unlikelihood of technicians from
Potomac Edison being nearby at such a moment of
crisis. What is the probability of that?
Infinitesimal at best.
Time on Our Side
Yet God is not bound by
probability. Or as Albert Einstein put it,
"God doesn't play dice." He exercises
providential oversight in our lives which vastly
exceeds our awareness.
And his timing is never off. It's
the exquisite timing of God which most intrigues
me as I reflect on this incident. The power
company squad was there at exactly the moment I
needed them, in spite of the extreme odds against
it. The incident was admittedly unusual. Yet I
believe that from time to time God gives us
experiences like this as a window on his broader
and more mysterious work in our lives. He wants
us to know that his timing is always perfect, in
every aspect of our experience.
We instinctively mistrust the
timing of God, and this lack of trust accounts
for much of our anxiety. Yet a close look at our
experience shows how flawless his timing actually
is. With the benefit of hindsight, we often
recognize how remarkably advantageous his timing
has been in the events of our lives.
God's Timing and the First
Christmas
Scripture constantly extols the
timing of God. The Christmas story is a rich and
enlightening example. No other portion of
biblical history seems to better highlight the
majesty and perfection of God's timing. Jesus was
born in "fullness of the time," Paul
declares (Gal 4:4 RSV). The convergence of human
events was perfectly orchestrated for his
entrance.
We now
recognize a multitude of ways in which this was
true. Christian historian Kenneth Scott
Latourette notes, "Jesus was born in the
reign of Augustus. After a long period of wars
which had racked the Mediterranean and its
shores, political unity had been achieved. . . .
Never before had all the shores of the
Mediterranean been under one rule and never had
they enjoyed such prosperity."* The benefits of this
time of cooperation included a unified language
and an elaborate road system that provided
unprecedented ease of travel. Yet the
urbanization which resulted left many feeling
disoriented, fostering a hunger for spiritual
perspective which the Christian gospel answered.
It's clear now that God knew
exactly what he was doing in bringing Christ to
earth when he did. While this is interesting from
the standpoint of history, it also has profound
implications for us who follow Christ. We can
take comfort in knowing that the same power of
timing which affected the events of Christ's
birth also operates in the circumstances of our
individual lives. God's ways with Christ were
meant, in part, to show his ways with us (Rom
8:11, 32).
Responding to God's Timing
While there is great
encouragement in knowing this, there is a
significant challenge as well. When I reflect on
the first Christmas, I'm often stunned to think
that very few people--only a handful--were
at all aware that anything extraordinary was
taking place. For the vast majority of the people
of that time it was simply business as usual.
It takes spiritual alertness to
appreciate the timing of God. And to respond to
it. God graciously allows us to experience the
benefits of his timing in countless ways, even
when we're not consciously trying to cooperate
with him. He works behind the scenes in untold
ways to protect us and provide for us. Yet within
certain boundaries he also gives us freedom to
make decisions which do or do not conform with
his timing. Here, though, the challenge comes in
understanding his timing. There is no easy
formula for doing this, and we should not be too
quick to think we grasp his plans. He has
radically different clocks for each of us.
Consider examples from the Christmas story:
 A
woman past the childbearing years, Elizabeth,
gives birth to a son. How often we give up too
early on a personal goal and let failure convince
us God has said no, when in reality he has simply
said "Wait."
A
very young woman, Mary, conceives a child
miraculously. Sometimes God is ready for us to
move ahead before we think it is logical to do
so.
Mary
gives birth to Jesus in the humble setting of a
stable. We can think we're unprepared to do
something because we lack certain material
benefits. In fact, these may not be at all
necessary to carry out what Christ wants us to
do.
And with a number of those in the
Christmas story we observe something intriguing:
They were simply going about their routine
responsibilities when God intervened and gave
them a role in the events surrounding Christ's
birth.
When we look closely at those
privileged few who participated in the first
Christmas, and why God may have chosen them, it
seems that they not only had a heart for God but
a unique bent for listening to him. There
were Zechariah, Anna and Simeon, who prayed
regularly in the temple. Mary and Elizabeth also
gave earnest attention to prayer. There were the
wise men, who undoubtedly spent much time seeking
God. Then there were the shepherds, who were
watching their flocks in the field when the angel
confronted them; while we don't know whether they
were praying at that time, their vocation allowed
them considerable time for quiet reflection. God
had the chance to get their attention.
The message, then, is clear: If I
am to enjoy the benefits of God's timing in my
life, I need to give to him something for which
there is no other substitute: time. It is
perhaps the greatest irony of the Christmas
season that we become so busy at this time of
year that we have less time than ever to be still
before the Lord. With the Christmas holidays
approaching, let me encourage you to set aside
some generous time for being alone with Christ
and gaining his perspective on your life. And
resolve to make this your priority in the year
ahead--to spend at least a few minutes daily
listening to Christ and giving him the freedom to
guide your decisions.
While God's timing in our lives
will always remain a mystery, the secret to
keeping in pace with it is not. Give him the time
he needs to get your ear and to impress on you
his direction for your life.
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