Last minute is better than no minute

God seems like a last-minute God. He waits until we are at our wit’s end, when all our resources are used up, all our ideas tried. Then we cry out to Him and He answers our prayer.

At least that is what He seems like to me. I realize it is my fault. I should have asked sooner. I should have quit trying to do it in my own strength. I should have not waited so long.

Does it take everyone a lifetime to learn that they are helpless apart from Him? Or does it take a catastrophe so large that they know that all their own resources are used up? I’m reading Acts 2 and have to conclude that some people are like that and do need a catastrophe.

Peter is quoting Joel from the Old Testament in a sermon to skeptics. The quotation is about the last days when God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Some of the prophecy is positive, but frightening. As the “sun turns to darkness and the moon into blood,” some will finally turn to God. Verse 21 promises, “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

I continually pray “whatever it takes, Lord” and have to realize that it might take that “coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD” before some on my prayer list will call out to Him.

But, and this is an important reality, God is a last-minute God. He saved the thief on the cross who called out to Him at the last minutes of his life. He saved our friend of eight-one years when he called out to Him in the last few days of his life. He saved our nephew who waited over forty years before calling out to Him. His timing may seem delayed to me, but He does His best work at the best minute.

I’ve a family prayer list that staggers me, and at times I cry as David did, “How long, O Lord? How long?” I watch them stumble through life, looking for what they cannot define, and refusing to listen to anything about God who can rescue them. How long, indeed.

But God knows. It might be at that last minute just before the coming of Jesus Christ and the world is in turmoil like never before in history. But it might be at a quiet moment when His Spirit reminds them of a truth overheard in an elevator. God is not limited, nor is He impatient. He who knows the human heart also knows the right minute to speak to that heart.

Every day I call on Him, and every day He speaks to me. His words are on target to my needs, an answer to my call. How can that be? I used to think it an amazing example of His omniscience combined with His sovereign power to bring my daily reading in line with my needs. Now I realize that is not it at all.

Instead, God knows I am totally needy in every area of my life. Each day, He singles out one need, a specific helplessness in one certain area. As His Spirit helps me feel that need, He has already lined it up with what He knows I am going to read that day.

Instead of feeling manipulated, I feel cherished. God’s special attention toward me helps me understand the way He answers prayers for others. He know the coming events in their lives and knows how to use those events to speak to their needs, needs that they may not realize they have until that event happens. Then, as soon as the need is felt and their hearts cry out, whether it is right now or at the last minute, He will hear their cry and save them.