Thought: Trusting In God’s Timing

By Rev. Leo H. McCrary II – July 4, 2021
Responsive Reading – Isaiah 55:1-12
Key Verse – Habakkuk 2:3

Introduction

God’s timing — do you trust in God’s timing?

Some of you know this but some of you do not know this, but five years ago I was diagnosed with end stage renal failure – kidney failure.  So, to treat this and to keep me alive and breathing, I had to undergo dialysis four days a week for three hours a treatment.  Certainly not how I envisioned my life going while in my early 30s but there I was.

I immediately began praying for a new kidney so that I could stop with the dialysis treatments and get on with my life.  I had been running a web and graphics design business with my brother and we were at the point where we were starting to make some serious gains as a business.  Yet, I was taken off my desired course and on a different path.  As always, my fate was in God’s hands and I had to trust in where He was moving me.  Again, I had to trust in His vision and I had to trust in His timing when it came to where my life was going to go.

We often say that we trust the Lord’s plans (His will) for us, but how long will we wait for God’s plans to come to fruition?  Many of us are just like me when I was diagnosed with kidney failure — most of the time we have no idea what God is up to!  We don’t truly know or understand where God is taking us and many of us don’t quite understand right away how He is using us.  We also don’t understand the work that God is doing for us when it comes to delivering us His blessings. 

So, the question still remains — do you trust in God’s timing?  I am certain that all of us as believers will answer yes to this question right away.  Yet, to me, this is such a loaded question for the believer because verbally saying yes is quite different from the act of trusting in God.  You see, faith is not just a verbal commitment or a thought of mind!  Faith is always in motion, never stagnant.  Faith walks with the Lord and never moves out ahead of Him.  Yet, there are a lot of occasions where we simply become impatient in how things are moving for us and in our impatience, we show that we don’t truly trust in the Lord and what He is doing for us.

Hard to Trust

Trusting in God, His vision and His timing, is no easy task.  When you really think about it, the idea of “trusting” is difficult, isn’t it?  We say that “trust is earned, not given.”  Many of us take a very long time to build up trust in another person, don’t we?  Before we can trust in anybody, they essentially have to prove that they are trustworthy to us.  

We want to see if people are going to lie to us, hurt us, play games with us, or are they going to be truthful, respectful, and treat us with dignity.  Nobody gives away their trust in a day, it takes time!  It’s even like this in nature!  It actually takes time for our dogs and our cats to put their trust in us!  Like us, they are waiting to see if we are going to do right by them!

Now, we are all this way about giving our trust because trust is that barrier – that shield – that protects our heart.  We are very protective of our heart and so the feeling is that we are putting our hearts on the line when we are putting our trust in somebody.  So, I say all of that to say that it takes a great deal of trust and faith for us to put our hearts into the hands of another.  The last thing any of us want is to be hurt in our heart.

Trusting God

Believe it or not, there are many people who approach trusting in God in the same manner.  We will question what He is doing to or for us, and when things don’t seem to be going our way, we question why we trusted Him in the first place.

Many of us believe that God has to earn our trust by proving that He can be trustworthy.  We say to the Lord, “give me this” or “give me that” in order to put God’s trustworthiness to the test.  The idea being that if God does what we ask or say, then we can trust Him.  Let’s consider that in doing this, we are testing the trustworthiness of the same God who gave His only begotten Son to the world in order to give all people an opportunity at salvation.  

Not only has He offered salvation to mankind but the Lord is constantly our provider.  Let me direction your attention to what is recorded in the gospel of Matthew.  Jesus said, “Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear (Matt. 6:30-31)?’ ”  

I want you to understand that God does not need to earn our trust.  The Lord has cared for every last one of us since before we were conceived in our mother’s womb!  Again, I say that the Lord does not need to earn our trust.  The decision rests on our shoulders as to whether or not we are going to give our trust Him.  I believe that we are all familiar with the proverb of Solomon in which Solomon says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding (Prov. 3:5).”

Trusting ourselves over God  

 For many of us, it is much easier to trust in our own plans than to trust in the plans of another, including God.  

To put our trust in God’s vision requires us to submit to His plan and to His purpose which is very difficult for many of us to do.  We want to do what we desire and accomplish what we desire in the time frame we have set for ourselves.  So, the idea is that we want to be in control of what’s going on in our lives instead of totally turning our lives over to God.  When we feel like we are in control, we feel like we can make things happen when we desire them to happen.  

We struggle with waiting on anything — this even includes waiting on blessings from the Lord!  Most of us consider the Lord to be a slow worker and, I tell you, the last thing we want is for somebody slow working on our behalf.  God’s timing is simply too slow and so we feel it is better for us to go out and get things done at our own pace.  So, what does this say about us, the genuine believer, when we cannot wait on God’s timing?  Are we saying that the Lord’s blessings are not worth the wait?

The Way of God

It is beneficial for us to wait on God.  When I say wait on God, I want you to understand that this means for us to be patient in our faith.  The Lord has a plan for us and His plan is certainly going to come to fruition.  God is always working on our behalf and to our benefit.

God’s plans are higher

The Lord said to Habakkuk, “write the vision and make it plain on tablets … for the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.  Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”  

The vision being spoken of in my key verse for today was actually about the end days (Dan. 8:17, 19; 10:14).  The Lord was speaking of a promise that He had made about His final judgement of sin.  We must understand that God is a God of promises and that He always keeps His promises.

After mankind’s fall in the garden, God promised that One who would bruise the head devil (Gen. 3:15).  This promise was fulfilled centuries later through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  When Jacob was set to go into Egypt, the Lord promised that He would make Jacob (Israel) a great nation and that He would deliver them from Egypt (Gen. 46:1-4).  Again, this promise was fulfilled many years later through Moses who led the children of Israel out from bondage in Egypt.

God is going to keep His promise towards all of us in granting the desires of our hearts.  Yet, the question still remains, are we going to trust in God’s timing on delivering to us the future and that hope spoken of in Jeremiah 29:11?  The Lord declared to us that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways His ways.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts (Is. 55:8-9).”  

I believe all of us think we have really good plans and thoughts about our future, right?  We all have the same end goal in mind when it comes to our plans.  We desire to be “happy” and “well off” years from now, right?  This means that we don’t want to have struggles.  We want the nice vacations and to be able to enjoy all that we have gained while at the same time doing the most of nothing that we possibly can do!  

No matter how good our vision and plans are, the Lord says to us, “your plans are good, but My plans for you are far higher and my thoughts are higher.”  What God has for every last one of us is better than what we can dream of!  Yet again, we must be willing to be patient in our faith and trust in God’s plan, and we must be willing to trust in God’s timing for His higher plan and thoughts to come to fruition for us.

Working for those that wait on Him

God has promised, “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Is. 55:10-11).”  God is not like us in that we often say that we are going to do something only to never get around to doing it.  The Lord, on the other hand, does exactly what He says He is going to do.

God is always at work. Jesus, when speaking to the Jews, said to them, “My Father has been working until now (John 5:17).”  Again, God has been our provider and has continuously made a way for us when there was no way!

Let’s again turn to the gospel of Matthew and take a look at what Jesus said as to why we should put our faith in the Lord and trust in God’s providence and care.

Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ –

Matthew 6:25-31 NKJV

Again I tell you, God is always looking after us, caring for us, and being a provider for us! God continues to make a way for us when there is no way, and then we have the audacity to say that God has to earn our trust!

Submitting Ourselves to God’s Timing

If you truly want the blessings that come from God, then I encourage you to wait on Him and His timing.  The Lord has not forgotten nor has He forsaken you when it seems like it is taking Him forever to deliver a blessing to you.  Again, our faith must be a faith that endures and is patient as the Lord puts us into position to receive His blessing.  Unfortunately for us, the struggle we often face is that even though we know God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours, we still can’t fully submit ourselves to His timing – His will.

Again, 5 years ago I suffered end end stage renal failure. For 5 years I had to undergo dialysis treatment 4 days a week.  As soon as I began those treatments I immediately wanted the blessing of a new kidney and I prayed constantly for it.  I tell you that the Lord heard my prayer but the Lord had a plan and purpose that was higher than any plan that I could come up with.

I still do not fully understand what God’s plan and purpose was for me having to undergo losing the function of my kidneys.  Yet, I do know that my journey over those 5 years strengthened not only my faith but my journey has also encouraged the faith of others.  I tell you, God will use us in ways we never fully understand right away!

Over 5 years I had to wait on the Lord, and while that sounds like a long time to some, I am grateful for the time.  I have preached about miracles and how wonderful God’s greatest blessings are and now I can use a recent part of my journey as a testimony to what I preach today!  

When God came through with my blessing, the timing could not have been more perfect.  When God blesses us at the appointed time, I tell you that everything will fall into place perfectly.  Everything is still falling into place and my eyes are being opened even wider to just how gracious God is to us!  If we wait on the Lord, His vision is set for an appointed time and it will not lie (because God doesn’t lie).  What I want you to know is that when God’s plans come to fruition for us, they are absolutely flawless and you will recognize it!

As it is written, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9).”  What God has for you is absolutely perfect and it is nothing that you can even dream of.  Do not give up on God because things aren’t happening at your desired pace.  We must not ever lose sight of God’s promise to us, nor should we ever doubt that God is not going to keep His promise. 

God promises that whatever we ask, will be given to us (Matt. 7:7).  David said that the Lord not only filled his cup but that his cup runneth over (Ps. 23:5).  God’s promises never come back empty!  So trust in the Lord’s timing and trust in what God has planned for you! God will deliver in His own timing, and when He delivers, the blessing is going to be to your benefit!  As Paul wrote, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).” Trust in Him, trust in His plan, and trust in His purpose.