God’s Timing

In his novel, Safely Home, Randy Alcorn describes a scene in heaven where, with great angst, the angels are watching the persecution of God’s people. The Lord is watching too, feeling their pain, waiting for the right time to vindicate them and end their suffering.

While many people would ask why He allowed it in the first place, I am greatly comforted by Alcorn’s fantastic description of God’s perspective and how he reinforces the fact of God’s sovereignty in my mind. I don’t understand God’s thinking, nor do I always like what He is doing, but knowing He is in control relaxes my racing heart.

Luke 18:7 is a line from the middle of a parable about prayer. Jesus says we “always ought to pray and not lose heart,” then after his story about a woman’s continual appeal to an unjust judge, He says, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?”

Sometimes when I pray the answer is right on the heels of my amen, yet other requests continue for years without any sign that God is doing anything. The picture Alcorn creates of a patient, loving God waiting for the right time doesn’t come to mind as often as it should, for it is a true picture. His eye is on the sparrow, for goodness sake, so why should I doubt that He is watching and waiting, ready to respond to my cries for help?

A few months ago a friend asked for prayer concerning her brother and a huge problem in his life. We prayed and I kept praying, daily at first, then every few days as he came to mind. In a few weeks, her face shining with amazed joy, she reported that the situation was resolved. God impressed me, not only because of the answer (this man was in serious trouble), but because he lives on the other side of the world. We who prayed have never met him, but God was watching, and listening. He heard our cries and at the right time, He rescued this man.

The parable in Luke is about a woman seeking justice against an adversary, perhaps an unjust landlord or a creditor. As for me, most of the time my adversary is not flesh and blood, but “principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). Like the forces against my friend’s brother, these are unseen foes. I have no idea what they look like, and often don’t know exactly what they are doing.

But God does. He sees the unseen. He watches my struggle. He feels my pain, knows my sorrow and the burdens that bring me to Him in prayer. He watches, and waits, and even though it seems that He “bears with” me for longer than I want, He makes something very clear—at the right time, the best time, He will avenge (vindicate) me and deal with whoever or whatever is troubling my heart.

Today’s prayer list is long, as are the demands on my time, yet few things on the latter list have eternal import and they can wait. God is asking me to get out that first list and get to work.