2 Chronicles 29:36 Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people, because it was done so quickly.

Sometimes God’s plans seem to take forever, as Peter was responding to in his famous statement about God’s time frame. (2 Peter 3:8) However, Peter had experienced some pretty sudden works of God as well, as his statement includes, and that’s what Hezekiah and crew were experiencing here. At this time of year we’re likely to remember a particular example: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’” (Luke 2:13-14 KJV) We never know how God’s time frame is going to mesh with ours. Often enough, we don’t recognize it until after it’s happened! Subjective time and objective time are very different. That is famously clear in the time perspectives of little children as compared to senior adults. For a little child, it seems like Christmas takes forever to arrive, where for a senior adult it’s more like, “My word! Christmas again already?” Tolerance for delayed gratification is a well known sign of maturity, but the flip side of that can be inertia and procrastination. True spiritual maturity lies in letting God set the schedule and then following it with joy, whether it seems fast or slow.

I’m definitely in the senior adult end of that scale at this point, and I have to keep prodding myself to keep moving. We’ve been in Omura now for fully 40 years, yet it seems like just the other day when we were a young family with our children in local schools. The thing is, God isn’t through with us, and we are still on His timeline. As I have written several times recently, we’ve been feeling that God is going to change things around before long, and when it happens, it may be sudden indeed. I need to be careful to keep my focus on the Lord so as not to miss His timing. Distractions abound! It would be very easy for me to zone out with books and the Internet all day every day, but that is clearly not what the Lord has in mind. The pace of my schedule through the end of the year is going to get pretty hectic, so I need to take each moment at a time, focusing on the task at hand and getting it done as a good, faithful steward. After all, that’s what the Lord asks of me, and I can have no higher reward than to hear Him say, “Well done.”

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for what You enabled me to get done yesterday. Thank You for Your schedule for today. I pray that I would be the support Cathy needs in what is on her plate for today, and that together we would be able to rest, relax, and rejoice in You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!