Doug Creamer: God’s timing

Published 12:00 am Saturday, August 12, 2017

I hope everyone is enjoying a good harvest from their gardens, or the blessings of a friend or neighbor with a garden. We are enjoying fresh delights from our garden. We try to use everything, but no matter how hard we try, sometimes things go bad. My wife keeps telling me it is all about timing.

Corn waits for no one. When corn is ready it needs to be picked or it will get old and tough. Tomatoes need picking or the birds, raccoons, or deer will eat them for you. Squash can be perfect in the morning and huge by the next day. I held off digging potatoes and some of them rotted right in the ground.

Timing and the weather are critical for so many crops. You have to watch the peaches and blueberries. Don’t pick a melon too early or it will never taste its best. Greens, broccoli, lettuce, and spinach like cool weather, while corn and okra want it hot. There is a season for each of these gardening delights and you can’t rush them or wait too long.

Spring is a time for planting. If you don’t plant in spring you can’t expect a harvest in summer of fall. We need summer’s heat and thunderstorms to make our gardens grow. There are things to be harvested in the fall and preparations for the long winter ahead. Winter allows us to rest and dream of a new season ahead.

There is a time and a season for everything. Each of us was born with no guarantee how long we might live. If we live each day seeing and believing for God’s best, then we can rest knowing we lived this day to its fullest. If we are blessed to live a normal life span then we will see seasons of life. First, we are young, then young adults, followed by maturity, and finally senior life. We have to learn to enjoy each season of our lives.

Our lives are like the seasons; filled with changes, and those changes involve God’s timing, which is not easy to understand. Should I take a new job or stay where I am? Should we buy a new house, and if so, when? I am wondering when I should retire. I love my job but I feel like there are some other adventures God has in store for me. When is God’s right time?

God lives on a different time table than we do. Often He tells us to wait when we are packed and ready to go. Then other times we are totally fine but God says it’s time to go.

I think we all hate to wait, whether in a doctor’s office, in line at the store, or sitting to stopped traffic. But I especially hate when I am ready for some change and then God says wait. Hearing “Wait” from heaven can drive me crazy. It’s seems when I am ready God is in the waiting mode. I struggle with His timing.

It is interesting when God opens the door to go how everything just seems to fall right into place. I can remember a couple of times in our lives when we both received job offers which meant we had to move. Then all the details fell right into place. Both these situations were after a period of waiting.

I have come to believe that the waiting is a test to see if we will trust God. Do we really believe that God has our best interests at heart? I believe part of the waiting is to allow God to get all the details to work out. He has to move on people’s hearts so that His favor can rest on our lives. That often takes time.

Contact Doug  at doug@dougcreamer.com