This post really links with the post on Deliverance which I completed a while back…
I’ve just been feeling that something really needs to be said about God’s Timing…
In the Fullness of Time was another post I completed a while back which also links to this…
God is a God of Timing…
Psalm 33 tells us,
The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generation. (Psalm 33:11 NASB)
Wow, what an amazing God we serve…
The Counsel of the Lord stands forever…
The Plans of His Heart from generation to generation…
Wow…
That is so awesome…
The LORD will accomplish what concerns me; Your lovingkindness, O LORD, is everlasting; Do not forsake the works of Your hands. (Psalm 138:8 NASB)
Wow…
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16b NIV)
Wow…
Every single detail of my life – who I would talk to, who I would correspond with, who would “cross my path” – every single detail – every single “collision” with every other person who I will ever interact with was written in God’s Book before one of them came to be…
Hallelujah Lord…
You are so Sovereign…
As David says,
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. (Psalm 139:1-18 NIV)
What knowledge is this?
What kind of knowledge does God have of us?
We are so in His Hands…
Whether we know it or not – we are so in His Hands…
He predestined us to know Him – He chose us in Him…
Chose us in Him that we might be first fruits of all that He created…
O Hallelujah!!!
Every single thing which happens to each and every one of us who know Him is calculated to bring us closer to Him and to His Glory…
For our joy – for our ultimate joy is to be made like Him – to know Him as He is…
He is the One who we want to know…
He is Above and Over All in our lives…
To Him belongs Eternal Praise…
No matter where we find ourselves, no matter what decisions we have made along the way to get us where we find ourselves – our God is a God of escapes from death – He will carry us until we reach glory – we will reach glory for He has promised to carry us all the way – in His Arms – in His Hands – He holds our hands – He will not let us go – He loves us for He delighted in us for His own Glory and Pleasure and in the exercise of His own will He chose us to be made like Him – conformed into the Image of the Likeness of His Son – our Saviour Jesus Christ – the Image of the Invisible God – Jesus Christ is God – God in Human Flesh…
We will not see God any clearer than in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ – He is the Supreme Example and even in His life we see the timing of God…
His time had not yet come…
We read that in the scriptures…
When the time had come Jesus set His Face to go to Jerusalem…
For the Lord GOD helps Me, Therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have set My face like flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed. (Isaiah 50:7 NASB)
And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, (Luke 9:51 KJV)
He stedfastly set His Face to go to Jerusalem…
He was not going to be distracted…
He stedfastly set His Face…
When the time came for Him to be received up…
He knew what He had to do…
The Lord furnished Him with the understanding to complete what He needed to complete – He knew that He would suffer (maybe not to the degree which He would suffer but He knew that He was going to suffer and He resolutely set His Face to go through with it)…
This is the motivation of someone (in this case Someone) who knows God’s will for their lives and who knows the timing – when the timing is right, the Grace of God comes upon the one waiting for the timing and the power is there to complete the task which God has given us to complete…
Jesus completed it but not a moment too soon or a moment too late – He completed it completely on time…
When Christ is in control of our lives we will complete all that He has ordained for us completely on time…
There will be pleasure from the Lord from our lives because His Timing is Perfect…
Until we come to that place where we rest in Him in all things and trust His Timing in our lives we are striving…
We are living in a place which He does not want us to be living in…
He knows what we have to go through to get us to the place where we “cease striving and know that He is God” – He knows this and will allow whatever He needs to to accomplish this relinquishment of control in our lives, to just accept His Timing in all things…
If we push – we fail…
If we “go ahead” – we fail…
If we wait – we succeed…
Wait on His Timing…
No rush…
No panic…
No fear…
No hesitancy…
No indecision…
No double-mindedness…
Just waiting on His word – His Voice – His Instruction – at His Instruction all is clear – there is a peace – there is no jabbing pain of panic or “you must do this now or you’ll miss out” – there is no “threat” – just a peace and a deep motivation to complete His will as He shows it to you…
Almost a deep welling up of courageous emotion from deep within your soul and a sense of deep dedication to Him and to His will…
I have experienced this…
It carries you…
You continue…
You keep going…
You get battered about…
You keep going…
You don’t give up…
You endure because He is motivating you to endure and you know that it was His Timing – His will that you stepped out – not in presumption – but in the leading of the Holy Spirit to do the thing which He placed on your heart…
This is fulfilment…
This knowledge is fulfilment (not that its not painful and you don’t have periods of discouragement or worse along the way :-))…
Between you and the Lord…
Others may look on and think, “What on earth is he waiting around for?”, “Why isn’t he doing anything?”, “What is his life achieving?”, “He showed so much promise in his youth, why hasn’t he amounted to anything?” and other such questions, they may even be thinking, “Why is he taking so long to do the thing which I’ve told him he needs to do – I’m sure I heard that from the Lord for him?” but no matter what others think – even Mary said this to Jesus but His response was, “Woman, My time has not yet come” or “My hour has not yet come”…
There is a time for all things…
The scripture tells us this…
At the time when the Lord calls us to complete His will in any different area there is always a coming together of faith, motivation, lack of fear, peace, purpose and resolve to complete the task at hand…
If any of these ingredients are not in place then we should wait…
David waited until he heard the sound of marching in the balsam trees…
So should we…
Now the Philistines came up once again and spread themselves out in the valley of Rephaim. When David inquired of the LORD, He said, “You shall not go directly up; circle around behind them and come at them in front of the balsam trees. It shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then you shall act promptly, for then the LORD will have gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines.” Then David did so, just as the LORD had commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba as far as Gezer. (2 Samuel 5:22-25 NASB)
The Lord was going before him…
As He will go before us when we wait for His Timing…
I do not believe our lives are about the choices we make (that might be controversial :-))…
After we give our lives to the Lord and He brings us to that place where we “cease striving and know that He is God” – for more “places” in our lives where He “inhabits” that knowledge and makes it reality – the more peace we experience…
And in that place we know that we don’t make any choices – we don’t take control and rise up and try and “do the right thing” (like Peter striking out at the servants ear in the Garden) – but we wait for Him to rise up within us – and – as we see in the scripture regarding David – go out before us…
Praise His Wonderful Name…
If He goes out before us – no matter where we are going – we will be victorious…
Victory for us may be to lose our lives – but it will still be victory on the inside (still be in peace with that sense of “rightness” to it – not in confusion – “He will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stedfast because they trust in Him” as His word says)…
We will know the victory and know the protection right up to the very end…
Never step out of the peace…
If someone is putting pressure on you to do something but you yourself don’t have a peace, never step out of the peace you feel to do what someone else is telling/imploring/begging/pushing (whatever) you to do…
Stay in the peace cos if you leave the peace then they become God to you – you then have to listen to them for all your further instruction cos you’ve stopped listened to God…
This is not a good place to be in and one which we must not find ourselves in…
If we are in such a place – get out of it…
Don’t entertain it…
Don’t receive it…
Go with the peace which God has placed on your heart – that is better than anything else which anyone is telling you – you can live with that – live with the consequences of following the peace which the Lord has placed on your heart – but you can’t live with the consequences of following someone else’s “peace” or something they’re trying to “push” on to you…
Wait for God’s Time – in God’s Time everything you need for the task which He has placed before you will be provided for you – it will not be difficult – He will do everything for you…
You will walk in it and you will be blessed…
Love in the Lord,
Andrew
a house of prayer for the nations 
I really feel to add to this post above that we really do need to follow the peace which the Lord gives us…
His peace is His Provision for us to be able to make wise decisions…
He has given us His Peace…
Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. (John 14:27 NASB)
I am overwhelmed tonight with the Kindness of God to give us His Peace…
Free – Freely Given – Not earnt…
Not striven for…
Thank You Jesus…
I remember back to a time last year when I didn’t follow God’s Peace – and then again earlier this year (related to the same situation) I did something against my better judgement – and I see now that that has not borne good fruit in my life (yes, the Lord has used it but it was not the right timing – anything we initiate or “rush ahead of the Lord” on is not going to bear good fruit) – I sensed (I thought from the Lord) that a certain group of us should pray but this didn’t end up eventuating and then I went ahead of the Lord by agreeing to share and pray with one member of the initially requested group – I did this against my better judgement – and I left the Lord’s peace in this situation – I’m sorry to that member and I’m sorry to You Lord for going ahead of Your peace – I let this go – and I pray for Your covering on all of that initially requested group – Your will be done for each of them in every way – Moses is coming to mind where he killed the Egyptian – he went ahead of the Lord – I’m sorry Lord and I let it go – I’m sorry Lord and to all involved – cover us with Your Blood, Thank You Jesus 🙂 – let any of my ideas come to nothing, let Your ideas come to pass in Your timing, Thank You Lord, Thank You for Your Patience towards me and I am sorry for letting You and this other member down in this situation)…
I would say again, even if someone else thinks something is a good idea or the right timing or whatever and even if you’ve initiated something initially and then realise that you’ve gone ahead of the Lord – as I did in the above situation – don’t “feel bad” or “feel obliged” to “carry it through” if someone “takes you up on that” but you just don’t have a peace – even if they do have a peace – if you’re the one who initiated it and you’ve “lost your peace” or realised that you were wrong to initiate it in the first place then “own up” and be upfront and stick to your guns and just say that you don’t have a peace and that’s that…
It’s better to do that than to “second guess” yourself…
It just brings confusion…
I know I’ve said this before but we really can’t look to our brothers and sisters in the Lord to tell us what God’s will is for our lives – yes, they will prophesy, they will share with us but we need to hand everything they share back to the Lord – back to the Lord before receiving any of it (which goes for what I share too) – and see if He gives us His peace individually to receive any of it and if He doesn’t just to stick to our guns and say, “I just don’t have a peace to do such and such”…
We don’t have to give any explanation of why we don’t have a peace and we may not even be able to give an explanation as the Lord tells us that “the peace of God which transcends all understanding”, i.e. we might not even know why or be able to comprehend why (which is OK), “will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus”…
I know I seem “hot” on this – but I’ve just really learnt this again recently – it doesn’t matter who the person is or how much we respect them or how influential they’ve been in our lives or our development in the Lord – we need to hear everything from the Lord directly…
This is the only way we’ll endure “when the going gets tough”…
Praise You Jesus… 🙂
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15 NIV)
Always follow God’s Peace – that is what the Lord is showing me tonight – always follow God’s Peace – if it doesn’t “sit right” with you – don’t do it…
He is warning you – maybe not your mind – but He is warning your spirit – some things – some attacks (whether those being used know they are being used or not or whether we know that we are being used or not is not really the point) – we do not comprehend with our minds – we just feel that there’s something wrong with it…
Love in the Lord to you all, to you all who Love Him because He has put this desire in your hearts,
Be Protected – and follow God’s Peace…
It (God’s Peace) will guide you into the Path of Righteousness – Gently leading you by His Peace – the Holy Spirit within you – will guide you with His Peace…
You will know Him and you will be Protected by Him…
All in Perfect Peace…
His Rest will keep you – nothing else is required – relax and rest in His Peace – He will overcome for you…
Love in the Lord,
Andrew
Ps. If there is a “breach” then we have failed to follow the path of Peace…
I see that now…
It is not the Lord’s fault…
We have failed to follow the path of Peace…
That is where the “breach” comes from…
Follow the path of Peace…
This is what we must do…
For our own protection and for our life…
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (Proverbs 4:23 NIV)
I believe peace guards our heart…
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7 NIV)
i.e. when we follow God’s Peace not to do something way down the track we would see that our hearts had been guarded – when we don’t we find way down the track that they haven’t been guarded…
Cover us Lord with Your Peace like a garment – wrap it around us in Jesus Name…
Thank You Lord…