Timing

“While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.” (Luke 2:6)

         Timing is everything.  I’m not sure this statement can be attributed to any one person. However, it is a statement that I think most people would agree with. Timing can often make all the difference in how an event unfolds or an outcome is reached.  

         The song Turn, Turn, Turn became an international hit in late 1965 when it was adapted by the American folk-rock group the Byrds. The folksy lyrics became part of a generation of turmoil.  Yet, we must step back in time to the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament to find the source of the song.  It was the writer of Ecclesiastes who said, “For everything, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

         Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem when the time came for Mary to deliver her child.  If Luke was a physician, as we suspect, he knew that a normal pregnancy took nine months.  Luke 2 records that the time came for Mary.  Yet, it might mean more than simple “clock” time.  Perhaps Luke was sharing that it was the pivotal moment in time in which God would step into the world in human flesh.  This was a holy moment where heaven intersected the earth, and Jesus was born.  This seems to be what the Apostle Paul alluded to when he wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman.” (Galatians 4:4) This was all about God’s timing.

         As we seek to discern God’s will for our lives, timing is everything. We must seek to match our lives to God’s tempo.  We cannot rush ahead, nor can we lag.  Through prayer, scripture, worship, and conversation, we live into God’s timing.  As the psalmist would proclaim, “I trust in You, O LORD; I say, “You are my God. My times are in Your hands.” (Psalm 31:14-15)

Prayer:  My times are in your hands, O Lord. Help me to trust in you.