God’s Timing

When we pray to God we normally include requests for our needs. We need peace. We need health. We need many things that God can grant to us. We also have many wants. We want a better job. We want better relationships, and we want everyone now, but God may not agree.

It isn’t easy ‘waiting’ for God to ‘answer’ our prayers. I have said many times that God always answers our prayers with. He says, ‘yes’ ‘no’ or some version of ‘the timing is not right’ so we wait, patiently for God’s response. The world waited and waited for Him to come and save us.

Today’s reading from the Gospel of John ends with the reminder that God’s timing is worth waiting for. He doesn’t come too early, nor too late. Here’s what I mean.

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” The Pharisees then said to him, “You are bearing witness to yourself; your testimony is not true.” Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true, for I know whence I have come and whither I am going, but you do not know whence I come or whither I am going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true; I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me.” They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also.” These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

John 8.12-20

When we ask God for His help we must accept that He knows best. He knows what we need, and He knows when we need it. God has perfect timing. It is impossible for God to be wrong, so if the ‘answer’ to our prayer isn’t exactly what we want, then we are the ones who must change.

Judas made the same mistake when he thought he could usher in the era of the Messiah. Peter was wrong when he thought he could delay the arrest of Jesus in the garden by cutting off the soldier’s ear. We are wrong if we think our timing is the best, rather than God’s timing.

Generation after generation of Jews waited for the Messiah, and when He finally came most of them refused to believe and follow. They chose their own timing rathe than God’s. It has been more than two thousand years since Christ walked the earth. We are still waiting for His return.

If we can learn anything from today’s reading, we must accept that God knows exactly when the right time is to return and finish what He started. What we need to focus on is living in faith that He knows best. We must learn to be patient AND faithful, without giving up hope in His return.

This is why the Church is so focused on a life of prayer and fasting. It isn’t that we should ignore the hungry. We should feed them. It isn’t that we should ignore the lonely. We should visit them. Feeding the hungry and visiting the lonely with an angry inpatient heart is no good for our soul.

A life of prayer and fasting, and the sacraments of the Church, are gifts from God to shape our hearts and to make us holy like God is holy. Then we will see the hungry and lonely with love rather than obligation.

Nothing teaches patience better than learning to delay gratification, which is the spiritual benefit of fasting. Nothing teaches compassion better than taking time out of our hectic day to speak with God. If we can’t find time for God, we will never find time for others.

Timing is important and God’s timing is everything. If only we could learn to embrace His timing with patience and faith. It won’t matter what we want from God, so long as we know He we will always give us what we need WHEN we need it, and not a moment sooner.