Some of us may be going through a bad season or unpleasant times in our lives. Our finances may look bad, our health may be failing and things at work place and family may also not be that good. Even the future may look bleak. Probably it is a time of discouragement and disappointments. In the midst of all these, the Word of God reminds us that our God has His own way for working in our lives. The thought for our reflection today is, “OUR GOD HAS HIS OWN TIME TO EXECUTE HIS PLANS”.
“But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” (Genesis 17:21).
When we read through the Bible, we understand that God has been working with His own time from the beginning of Creation. Our omnipotent God has appointed exact times for things to be done according to His calendar. We are reminded of what Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 3:11,
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.
Abraham and Sarah were desperate to see God’s promise of blessing them with a son becoming a reality. But Abraham and Sarah’s time was not God’s time.
1. God is not man to PROMISE and not to keep His promise
When God delayed in fulfilling His promise Abraham decided to settle with his second best that is Ishmael. That’s the reason when God said to Abraham, “I will bless her (Sarah) and will surely give you a son by her” in Genesis 17:16, Abraham asked God, “Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” and said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” (Genesis 17:18). Are we disillusioned by God’s delay in fulfilling His promise and now at the verge of settling with the second best?
2. God is one who PREDETERMINES the time to fulfil His promise
God for the first time clearly specifies the time when Sarah would bear a son:
“… Sarah will bear to you by this time next year” (Genesis 17:21b).
He repeats that in Genesis 18:10:
“Then the Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your will wife will have a son.”
God’s “predetermined time” may appear to be “delayed time” to us though it may the best time in God’s calendar. Are we becoming desperate due to the delay in answer to our prayers and fulfilment of God’s promises?
Did not the wise man say,
“There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
Is it not true that even our own timings often go wrong but God’s timing will always be perfect? “God is not human, that He should lie, not a human being, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfil?” Let’s not lose hope but surrender our sense of desperation and disappointment to God and keep believing that He who has our future in His hands would fulfil His promises in His own time.
Blessings!