Christian Challenges

God's Timing Not Ours

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
Ecclesiastes 3:1.

With a lot of dramas the ending is not always obvious from the beginning. Then when you add in all the twists, turns and incidents that occur during the drama one is sometimes left high and dry as to where the outcome of each thing will lead. This world is the grand theatre upon which stage the great drama between good and evil is played out and witnessed by the angels and the unfallen worlds. Each person has their part to play, and the decisions they make decide whether they will live for eternity or not. (see Testimonies for the Church Vol 8 by Ellen White, p. 27; and Vol 7 p. 173.)

One of the attributes of God is that He is omniscient which means He knows all things. Scripture calls Him the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending (Rev. 1:8). If God knows everything from the beginning to the end, then He knows when to give us things and when not to. He knows what doors to open and what ones to close. This does not mean the decisions are made for us. If we want to, we can open a closed door and go through it instead of the open door. However, if we love and obey God we will follow His leading.

This means that sometimes we are left wondering why God allows certain thing to happen in our lives. Why things are not working out the way we think God would have it worked out? However, if we knew what God knows and could see the whole picture as He sees it, there would be no question in our mind at all.

God is just, good, faithful, loyal, and merciful. Yet He needs to know who will love and obey Him and be worthy of inheriting heaven. So He allows trial and temptations to come upon all men to see what their characters are made of (Heb. 12:10).

This can be clearly seen in the lives of two well-known Bible characters - Job and David. Take a look at the trials that Job went through. He lost all his flocks, his children, his servants, and his wife even told him that he might as well curse God and die. Yet this was all a trial to prove Job’s faith and he was bountifully rewarded for his faithfulness. David’s story is different yet similar. He was just a young man when anointed by Samuel to be the next king of Israel, yet he had to wait for many years before it happened. He was hunted like a fugitive by King Saul and from a human perspective it looked like David would never become king, but this was God’s way of proving David’s faith and making a better king for Israel.

There is also one very infamous character mentioned in Scripture that a lot of people love to hate and that is Lucifer or Satan. He started out a perfect being, the covering cherub next to the throne of God, yet he sinned. He is the father of all sins, lies, and everything evil. God could have destroyed Satan when his rebellion first came up in heaven. However, God is just and He wanted the opportunity to prove that His way was the best way, and that Satan’s way is not nice. Therefore God allowed him to live to prove to heaven, earth, and the unfallen worlds how terrible Satan’s government really is. Fortunately his time is coming to an end soon, along with all sin and sinners.

So God has a time for everything:

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© S. D. Goeldner, February, 2013. Last updated July, 2020.
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