It's All About Timing

The astronomical clock in Prague, Czech RepublicLet me speak to you of timing.

But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world."

Jesus told them, "The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right. . . . You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come." Having said this, he stayed in Galilee. (John 7:2-3, 6, 8-9)

I was mulling over this passage the other morning, and got to thinking about the importance of timing. The brothers of Jesus wanted him to attend the feast because they thought that, with that many people around, he was sure to get pulled into doing miracles. They wanted to see those miracles and how the big crowds would react to them.

Jesus, on the other hand, had an issue with his brothers' timing. It wasn't the right time for him to become a public figure in Jerusalem, with all the religious and political intrigue there. He wasn't going to push things faster than they should be pushed. It was important to wait for his Father's guidance, for the time and the circumstances to be right. There's a certain arc to any really good story, any really good life, and pushing ahead can ruin it all.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. Eccl. 3:1

I remember with clarity a conversation I had with my pastor on a walk in Northern California just about eight years ago this summer. I was telling her, as we walked through those beautiful meadows and woods behind the college where I taught at the time, about this man I was falling in love with. It was my kind of love story: falling in love through letters, meeting and finding out that we just fit, and realizing that this looked like it was actually going to be "it" for me.

The neat thing was that my pastor and I were both long-time single women, and she was about six months ahead of me in falling in love with her man, a good-looking, wonderful pastor from Sacramento. They would make a great team.

I don't remember what I said to draw this comment out of her, but suddenly she said, "Ginger, if you don't mind, I'd like to caution you. Don't move too fast. A good relationship will take time, even when it's the right one. Think of it as giving birth to a child. It takes root, but then there's a gestation period. If you rush it, if you give birth to that child too soon, it may have problems surviving. Just relax and let things take their time and develop fully before you step into marriage."

They were, I think, the words of God to me through her. The following January I played the college church pipe organ for her wedding, and then seven months later she and her husband came to our wedding...a year after our walk together in the woods. We needed that whole year, Husband and I. There's a certain arc to every really good story, and pushing it too fast can jeopardize it.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

It's wise to wait until the right time has come.

It works that way in other things, too. I was recently with a group interviewing a number of candidates for a certain very important position. We interviewed several candidates of different ages. One very young candidate showed extremely high promise, but the group had reservations about his youth and inexperience. The potential was there, but something else didn't feel as sure.

On impulse, I said, "I wonder if he just hasn't gotten knocked around by life enough yet." Another search committee member later referred back to that statement. For a leadership position, the timing must be right. You can step into it early, but pushing it too early can jeopardize the success of the leader. And there are so few good leaders in this world that you want to give them every chance to succeed, to bring their life experience to understanding people and finding the intrinsic rewards in the role. So the committee selected another applicant.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

Sometimes we grow impatient. We think we can see the arc of the story that we most desire. We want to do certain things or hold certain positions or have certain experiences in life. And sometimes we are tempted to run ahead of the Father's timing--which is always the right timing. People end up marrying too early. Or they have children too young. Or they take on a career role that doesn't fit and ends up hurting both themselves and their organization. Or they try for some complex goal too early, and crash and burn.

There is a certain arc to every really good story; you need to let it work itself out in its own natural time.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

Within every large life story, there are little mini-stories going on as well, and each of those needs to develop fully, on time. Whether it's your large story, or a little sub-plot, I offer you this blessing: May you walk in peace, let your current story ripen at the right pace, and bring that story home to its resolution ... in the fullness of time.