“Faith in God includes faith in his timing.” ~ Neal A. Maxwell
“Your timing is terrible!” How many times have we said something like that to others? How many times have others said that to us? Timing is something that is very important to us. Perhaps that is because we are temporal creatures. That is, we were born in a timed world. We were told that we have a certain amount of time accorded to us.
One of the first things that we learned to do in school was to tell time — though, with the invention of digital clocks, that appears to be a thing of the past. We did our best to manage time with things like Daylight Savings Time. All these things gave us the subtle cues that we were in control of our world and of our destinies.
Guess what. We are not in control. That is one of the hardest lessons that any timed, mortal person can learn. To realize that we are not in control, that someone outside our sphere of influence is the one in charge, is a hard thing to consider. However, acknowledging that, we do our best to align ourselves with God and His will. However, there is a huge problem with that.
How does one who is bound by time align oneself to God who is timeless? We hear that things are done “in God’s time” and that has no meaning to us. When we talk about time, we want to see concrete realities. We want things bound by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. We cannot handle the concept of things being done according to the time frame of eternity.
God is timeless. We need to accept that and deal with it. However, that takes a lot of trust. When we ask God to help us, we need to trust that it will be handled in His own good time and in His way. We have no influence on either of those two realities. Were merely need to trust that He will help us. Being mortal, we know that is one of our flaws. We have a hard time trusting that which we cannot see, touch, or in any way manipulate. We are extremely uncomfortable putting ourselves in someone else’s hands. However, we simply have no other choice.
All the screaming, crying, or complaining that we do will not change reality. God is God and we are who we are. God is eternal and we are mortal. God is the one who has a plan and who can incorporate us in His plan. We need to submit to His will and go along with His plan. If that doesn’t take faith and trust, I don’t know what does.
FAITH ACTION: Ask God to increase your faith in Him so that you may be confident about His plan for you.