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Health & Fitness

Advent Timing

Have you ever doubted God’s timing?  Have you ever thought that God must have missed something, maybe overslept, or got distracted, and didn’t do what you thought He should when you thought He should do it?  If we are honest with ourselves, 99.9% of us are going to say yes.

I know I have doubted God’s timing.  When I wasn’t married and had no potential suitor after Seminary (my internal marriage deadline) I thought God must have forgotten somehow.  I told God that He had messed up my life plan!  I was supposed to start my new career married, not single.  Several years later, God did bring the right man into my life and we were married.  When we had tried for years to get pregnant and nothing happen, I wanted to sit God down and have a talk with Him and timing.  Everyone around us was getting pregnant right away, but for us, it was only waiting, until one day, several years after we had been trying, I found out I was pregnant (and I praise God every day for my wonderful daughter).  There have been other times I have wanted to sit God down and explain my timing to Him.  My timing for a job, for a house, for lots of things.  I have plans and timing all set up, doesn’t God know that!

Looking back, these are the times I think that God must have laughed at me, or maybe just shook His head and gently sent me on my way, or I should say, His way.  We don’t know God’s timing for anything.  We don’t know God’s timing for marriage, for having children, for that promotion, for the death of a loved one, for retirement, for anything.  Even though we don’t know it, God does know it.  God knows the plan for us and for the entire world.  God doesn’t oversleep, or get distracted, or go on vacation.  God’s plan is always in place, in motion, and perfect.

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The Christmas story is a great reminder to us about God’s timing.  God didn’t just throw a dart at a calendar to decide when Jesus would be born.  The exact timing of his birth was perfect, and part of God’s amazing plan.  We tend to think that the Jewish people waited a very, very long time for the Messiah to be born, and then one day it happened, and that is true, but it wasn’t just a random day.  The day the Messiah was born fit perfectly into God’s plan for the redemption of the world and for our own salvation.  Over the next few days I am going to be taking a look at how God’s timing for the birth of the Savior was perfect, and what that should tell us about God’s timing in our own lives. 

But for today, I will simply end with this reminder of God’s perfect Christmas timing . . . “ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”  Galatians 4:4-7

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God bless, Rev. Liz Arakelian, www.LivingHopeEC.org

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