Trust the Power of Divine Timing
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”
- Ecclesiastes 3:1
After savoring the most tender filet mignon I’d ever had and breathing in an incredible view of the Pacific Ocean on that Valentine’s Day in 1992, I looked across the table at the handsome, chivalrous, affectionate man who had come into my life. The look in his eyes told me something big was on his mind. I was right.
“Val, will you marry me?” Charles asked lovingly that night. We were neighbors in Monterey, California who’d fatefully met at the mailbox one afternoon. I was in college. He was in graduate school and a naval officer at the time. We became engaged, but in retrospect it’s clear that the timing wasn’t right. After ten months, we went our separate ways – he moving to New York and me to Florida. We didn’t see one another for eight years, and for five of those years, we didn’t have so much as a phone conversation. But one fateful Saturday morning in 2001, my phone rang and in an instant I recognized his familiar voice. It was him, simply calling to say “hello.” He was living near Washington, DC now, which was serendipitous because I had speaking engagements there and my father was on a work assignment there. Each time I visited, I would see Charles.
You can probably guess where this love story is headed. In February 2003, eleven years after his original, heartfelt proposal, he again asked me to marry him. And this time, the timing was divine. We married four months later.
I have learned that so often in life, purposeful opportunities present themselves, but we must always ask, “Is this the right timing?” Even when you feel divinely inspired to do something, it is possible that God is simply planting a seed right now that He intends to bring to fruition at another time and place further along in the path of your life. If it is indeed meant to happen for you, it will. In the course of eleven years, neither my husband nor I ever got married or had children. We didn’t know it, but God was growing and preparing us for each other and would bring us back together at the right time.
This week, I invite you to consider the opportunities for which you need to ask, “Is this the right timing?” You can do the right thing in the wrong timing. If it is the right timing, forge ahead now! It is just as important to move forward when the time has come as it is to wait when the time has not. If the timing is not now, embrace the opportunity to trust that God will allow all things to work together for your good in the timing that is best for you. We must surrender the need to be in control, because truthfully, we’re not really in control anyway. We cannot see the big picture. God can.
It may be in the area of a relationship, or it can be another area entirely that you need to trust divine timing. Perhaps you are feeling pressured to do something that will stretch you too thin financially. Maybe you sense a career change on the horizon and you are tempted to force it to happen too soon. Perhaps you are flooded with new ideas all the time and feel overwhelmed, as though you need to implement them all at once. Relax. File your inklings away and come back to them when you have the space, resources and energy. Everything doesn’t have to happen now. Give your vision space to unfold over time. Most importantly, be willing to follow your intuition – that divine inner compass of the Holy Spirit that offers guidance when you listen for it. Often, God has something in store for you that is exceedingly and abundantly above anything you ever thought or imagined (Ephesians 3:20), but you must trust Him and not try to figure it out before its time (Proverbs 3:5-6).
As I learned from my eleven-year journey, your patience and trust will be worth the wait.
