Just In Time

The scarf is in the mail. Is it late? Oh, yeah, but it's on its way.

I could ramble on about the relief I feel. It's done. The labor of love is finished.

Yet, I can't helping thinking about what it must be like for God in Heaven, waiting until just the right time to give us His gifts. Of course, he can snap his fingers and get anything ready in a moment or a day. I don't know what time is like for God, but I do know this, we are supposed to wait. Have you ever gone on Crosswalk.com’s Bible Search engine ? Try it. Type in the word “wait” or “patience”. We are told to wait on the Lord a lot.

Waiting well is a virtue. Think about it, what tops the list among the fruit of the spirit? What’s first in the definition of love? How many great men of the Bible - Moses, Joseph, Abraham, David - to name a few, had to wait on God? Yet, for mere mortals, waiting is seldom easy.

My girlfriend, born and raised in the deep South, has a way with words and she quipped recently, after she had gone through one heck of a long trial, that she was sure glad God took the time to take away all the rhinestones in her life. She is happy that the counterfeit things of this world were removed. She is grateful that the good Lord took his good sweet time to lay out the black velvet, empty, nothing, a blank canvas, so that when He put the diamond there, she'd be able to see it for what it was!

Isn’t she cool? Isn't she amazing? And she meant it! Oh, to have a faith like that. To see with human eyes all that God might have planned. To be willing to wait and wait some more. We are a ‘want it now’ society. We are a ‘want it now’ world. We can not delay our gratification. We lack patience. Me, most of all. I can't even knit a scarf without whining about how long it takes.

I just sent my sister a scarf and now I am trusting that it wasn't late one day. Not really. Not if God is sovereign. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a good thing to be On Time, but in God's economy, He is never late. None of His gifts are. Isn't it a good thing to wait for God's plans and not try to force our own? Joe likes to say that God is in the business of the “Just In Time” delivery.

What are you waiting for?