Trust the Timing of Your Life
Trust is the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.
As many of us know, cultivating trust in something or someone can be difficult depending on life circumstances, past experiences, and personalities. Trusting that everything works out in its own time and actually allowing that to happen is even more difficult. We currently live in a society that seeks instant gratification, rewards overnight success, and breeds viral sensations for 30 second videos. We are constantly bombarded with the next best thing that will make our lives easier. Everything about society suggests that we must make a plan and execute it immediately. If not, we aren't successful. If you don't post it, then it didn't happen. You must work harder. You must try harder to make things happen.
I think this is a terrible trick of the enemy that he is using to keep God's people distracted, depressed, discouraged and defeated. If he can get us to trust more in the destination or the thought of where we should be instead of the actual timing and space that we are in, we will always feel stuck. We will always feel like we are out of sync. Trusting the timing of your life relates to trusting that all things are working out the way they are supposed to in the time frame that they are supposed to. This takes a lot of reflection and self awareness of our own individual journeys. If we can release how we think things should play out in our master plan, we may see that those plans were never really ours to begin with. They were just one of the many quick fixes that society throws our way on a daily basis.
Trusting the timing of your life relates to trusting that all things are working out the way they are supposed to in the time frame that they are supposed to.
My cousin recently graduated with her masters degree. Initially when she applied for the program she was accepted, but the timing was off. She was excited to enter the program and receive a scholarship to cover her tuition and be immersed in higher education with colleagues. When she received her acceptance she was notified that although the program was excited to welcome her, she was one of the only students in her cohort who would not be receiving the scholarship. This was devastating news and definitely threw off her plans to pursue her masters at that time. Fast forward to this May, when she received her degree. She was able to re-apply to the program at a different time and was accepted with the scholarship and succeeded in completing the program. She also gained some amazing friends from this cohort along the way. While celebrating with her on her big day, I remembered our conversations about this experience from a few years ago and how God brought everything full circle. As He always does.
We trust God won't allow the timing to be "off" in situations.
Really trusting the timing of our lives means that we trust God. We trust God won't allow the timing to be "off" in situations. Things happen as they should for our protection and divine guidance. I often hear people say, "I wish God would just come down, sit on my bed and tell me exactly what to do." The irony is that we wouldn't listen to Him anyway, let's be for real. Honestly, when you prayed about that job or promotion that you were overqualified for and they selected someone else that was your answer. Or when you beat yourself up over opportunities that you didn't take and people that you miss because they are no longer with you, you are not a failure.
I read earlier that God gave us this time on earth as a GIFT. If we want to use our time for his glory, then we have to surrender our control over it. How things play out and when things play out are often out of our control because life is too unpredictable. God wants us to surrender our time and plans to him and simultaneously accept that things aren't always going to go our way. Trust that God deeply cares about you, how you feel, your success, and what happens to you. Trust that His plan is better than your own when things don't happen as expected. When we try to hold on to our time and manage it on our own, we end up feeling overwhelmed and defeated. Let's all practice surrendering our time to God's will and He will get the glory out of all of it. And I think we will all feel better and less stressed because of it!
