A Time for Everything, in God’s Timing

Ecclesiastes 3:11-14 “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should revere him.”

Sometimes the Lord brings things across our path through this earthly journey that are so bizarre, just to let you know that He is there, that He orchestrates time and events, and to remind you and I of the progressive steps that He has guided us on in the past to bring us to where we are today and that He is there every step of this Christian walk. And this reassurance opens the flood gates of faith and love in our life.

Decades ago, the Christian Education director asked me to become a discussion group leader at our church, in a new evening Bible Study titled “Search”. You know how it feels when you try something that you’ve never done before? Doubts feel your head that you can do a good job. But that was quickly eliminated by the study group that I lead. One couple in particular saw my uneasiness from inexperience and encouraged me each week, telling me how good that I was doing. They were a family that I looked up to, with a son and two daughters that loved serving the Lord by their life. Their son was our sons Youth Director. Their youngest daughter was a gifted singer, but it was her faith in Jesus Christ that shinned and flowed in a contagious wave. I remember her forming a College Bible Study at her home, and would bring the joy of the Lord to so many. They didn’t know it, but they touched and impacted my faith and Christian life more than they could ever know. They were like a mark that the Lord had set in front of me to point the direction to go, because I didn’t understand what I know now by the guiding hand of God, and I saw that all these wonderful people were sign posts in my education by the experience of interpersonal relationships. The kids now have kids of their own, the family had moved and been out of contact for longer than I can remember. But, as only the Lord can put together, on a five day cruise to Vancouver, we run into the youngest daughter (who now lives in Seattle: a mother of three). What a blessing to see Karen again and talk about what the Lord has been doing in our lives. It has recharged me more than the cruise was supposed to. The trip was truly wonderful with a perfect day in san Francisco & Victoria Island, but the biggest blessing was given by God, as He revealed His hand in what some consider a “small world’ coincidence, but for me another miracle that I’ve come to expect from my Father in heaven.

Blessed in Christ, Brian