By The move I am making – probably as your read this – the job I am starting in just a few short days, and the experience in it’s entirety is an answer to so many prayers I’ve prayed for years. And as I am now in the portion of these prayers where they are being answered, I see so clearly how perfect God’s timing really is.
This move is taking courage and bravery I didn’t know I had. It is taking strength in myself and trust in others. It’s big – one of the biggest things I’ve done myself. And I feel ready to do it – to take it on – joys, struggles, and all. I feel healthy and prepared, things I did not feel for many years.
I can clearly see now that this is not something I would have been able to do well any time in the past three years. It had to be now.
I thank God for hearing my prayers for all those years and preparing me to be able to receive his answers and obey his call, immediately when the time was right.
You see, even when it doesn’t feel like it, the truth is, we serve an immediate God. When the time is right, when he see something needs to happen, he will not delay. Not a moment too soon will he move, and most definitely not a moment too late.
There is a passage in Daniel chapter 4 that illustrates this well. Leading up to this passage, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and Daniel interrupts the meaning; namely, that King Nebuchadnezzar would lose his throne and live among the wild animals until he acknowledges the Lord as the Most High, and then once he does, his kingdom would be restored to him. The dream did come true…
“Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, ‘Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?’
“The words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven, ‘This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like cattle. Seven time will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.’
“Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled” (Daniel 4:29-33a).
Go back and read the first three words of the first sentence and then the first word of the last: “twelve months later… immediately.”
Twelve months later it happened immediately.
Our culture likes instant gratification and immediate results, and we bring this mindset and these expectations into our relationship with God. We want immediate answers to prayers, immediate healings, immediate dreams fulfilled. And though sometimes God does do things on a timeline we want, he doesn’t have to. Even though it would be a year before King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream would become his reality, it became a reality immediately when it was supposed to happen. I want to encourage you to keep your faith in God, even if he hasn’t answered your prayers. He might be waiting for the perfect time or he planning something even better. Either way, when the time is right, he will move in your life… immediately.
Photo by Shamim Nakhaei on @unsplash
