Timing is Everything

There are a ton of cliches out there. But this one is proving itself to be very true. Timing, truly is everything. The longer I live, the more I realize that it is not so much WHAT happens and WHEN it happens. You can find examples all over the place.

• David Tyree doesn't somehow catch that ball on his helmet in the Super Bowl last year on the game winning drive and he's just another roster cut victim this summer instead of a hero. The Patriots go 19-0. The 1972 Dolphins have to get real jobs.
• Barack Obama decides to run for Senate in 2010 instead of 2004 and he doesn't get invited to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention in 2004. He doesn't get a ton of national exposure. Clooney doesn't endorse him.  Oprah doesn't endorse him.  He doesn't win the nomination. Hillary wins going away over Edwards.
• I don't lean back into the van to put something on the seat when getting ready to fuel up, I get out well before my door mysteriously swings closed and my thumb doesn't get crushed in the door. Timing. If I lived my entire life two seconds behind what I did, and I go from being a Klutz Supreme to being a Close Call Artist.

Anyway. Timing is Everything. I applied for a job teaching at a private school in the area. I had my first interview. I had tons of recommendations. Everything looked great. Another application turned in her stuff right before the deadline. She had 15 years of experience. She's now the new Department Head and I'm still looking for a job. Timing.

This becomes a very difficult concept for us to deal with. We live in a time-constrained world. Everything is about time with us. We constantly have a clock running on us. We only have so many hours between when we wake up and go to bed to get our stuff done. And the more stuff that gets dumped on us, the harder it is to feel like we succeeded. So we are constantly stressed and worried, hoping that time works in our favor.

I think that the whole time issue is the worst when we are waiting for something. I can be working or surfing on the internet and time will just roll on. I won't sit there and be conscious of the time ticking away. But if I am in a doctor office, you better believe I know how long I was waiting. My cell phone decided to flip out this week. So I spent about six hours dealing with repair people, sales people, untrained store employees to get it fixed - and then to resync everything once I got a replacement. I knew how much time it wasted.

As anyone who reads this blog or knows me is aware of, I have been waiting and praying for my ministry to take off like I want and need it to. And I am keenly aware of how long it has been. And I wrestle between having faith that things will work out and being miserable at another day going by without an answer. I know you all can relate - it could be waiting on a baby, a job, a spouse, a salvation. Things that are important can take forever. And we hate waiting.

The big thing to remember is that God is not limited by time. He lives outside of our time constraints. He sees the long term approach. The individual blips and bumps don't affect Him. In addition, He sees the ending. So He has a totally different perspective. He knows that there are times He needs to make us wait because the timing is not right. We think it is because we think we are ready - but there is something that is not ready yet. It could be someone else that we are going to interact with is not ready yet. So we sit there frustrated at the wait, and God sits there telling us to be patient and wait because it isn't time yet.

Those of us with kids can understand. Ever tell a kid to wait on dinner when they are hungry? How did that go? My kids will come and tell us that they are "starving." Dinner will be in the oven and not ready yet. But they want it NOW because they are hungry. "I'M HUNGRY! WAAAA!" We know that if we give them that chicken that they will probably get sick and die because it is not fully cooked. But they would go grab it and cram it in their mouths if we didn't stop them. I know this principle, but I forget it all the time when I am in the midst of waiting. I almost have to repeat the mantra: "It isn't time. It isn't time." I just hope that I can learn to wait until the time is right.

On a side note -- I have been thinking about this blog and my writing a lot lately. I am in the process of writing a new book for Defender. Some days I feel like I have so many things swirling around in my head that I have trouble focusing for my work. Today it hit me that just like many things, I need to warm up for my day. That is why I am going to try to write each morning on the blog as my preparation for the day. We'll see how that goes.