God’s perfect timing

There is nothing more wonderful in my opinion than when our faith is boosted by seeing the things we believe in work out in practice.

I’ve seen this recently a number of times and I wanted to share the encouragement I have received from it with you.

So often we hear about God’s perfect timing – and although many of us will believe that God’s timing is perfect, sometimes in life, especially when we are waiting for prayers to be answered, it can feel as if His timing is anything but perfect! Sometimes as we wait we don’t see the bigger picture which only becomes clear much later.

Some of you will remember Dawn who used to work at Heavenly Partners . She and her husband had a small financial problem and a kind friend at church offered to help them out by lending them some money. They had decided that they wanted to move house and thought that once they sold their house they’d quickly be able to repay the loan.  Well despite much prayer over the selling of their house, it just would not sell. They dropped the price, they smartened it up, they did everything they could but it just wasn’t selling. They decided that obviously God wanted them to stay put so they took the house off the market and rather sheepishly had to tell their friends that the loan wasn’t going to be repaid quite as quickly as they’d hoped.

About a year later Dawn’s husband was at a garage sale at a neighbour’s house. There he met someone who told him that a friend of theirs who lived in Somerset really wanted to move into the area but couldn’t find the right house. To cut a long story short, this person eventually bought Dawn’s house and Dawn and her husband duly moved to a house that had only just come onto the market and was just what they were looking for.

They approached their friend to say they’d like to give the loan money back and were just so sorry it’d taken them a year longer than they’d hoped. And this was the friend’s response. “I’m so glad you weren’t able to give it back a year ago as we’d expected. If you had, we’d have spent that money by now, but our daughter has just got engaged and now that money is just what we need to pay for her wedding. God has helped us to save this money.”

There turned out to be many other reasons why the timing of selling Dawn’s house was perfect and not just the knock on effect it had on the friend receiving their loan back at the perfect time. There was no way Dawn or her husband (or their friend) could see this when the house didn’t sell initially. God does know what he is doing!

Now a little closer to home I have seen God’s perfect timing work again.  I have made a new friend recently who goes to an evangelical church in my local town.  Last week I did a Zumba class with her and happened to mention I had a cousin coming to stay for the weekend who I thought would like her church. She invited us to join her at her church and we duly did.  I would never have gone there a) if I hadn’t been able to join my friend and b) if I hadn’t wanted to take my cousin somewhere where she’d feel very comfortable.

By complete chance we happened to sit in front of a man who was interviewed by the pastor during the service, as he was getting baptised in the near future. At the end of the service my cousin went to encourage him in this step and during their conversation they took rather a liking to each other.  Now whether anything will develop between them is anyone’s guess but it did seem an amazing coincidence that I happened to make my new friend just before my cousin came to stay, that she was a Christian and invited me to her church, and as a result my cousin and this man were to meet.  I truly believe that God was at work here – and that He was directing the timing of events such that all our paths crossed at just the right point.

The more I think about it, the more I’ve heard similar stories from other Christians like these. God’s timing really is perfect – but we only know that once we’ve got to end of something and are looking back.  You really can’t look forward and see that God’s timing is perfect.

If you are holding out hope that God is going to bring someone special into your life, and you’ve put the whole thing into God’s hands, then take heart. You aren’t seeing the whole picture now – His timing is perfect and He will direct your ways.

Take Heart and Be Encouraged.