I remember, some years back, I was planning to buy my husband a new watch. He had several that he was wearing in rotation, but I was thinking that it was cool to give him a new one.
My husband doesn’t buy expensive watches. But he likes to rotate them as he uses them.
We’d buy nice ones on our trips, like when we’d see them on sale in Switzerland or Paris.
Imagine my surprise when two gift boxes arrived in our house! Two watches — expensive ones — from two friends who we had counseled just a few times that year. It was a “his-and-hers” watch tandem. Something we wouldn’t even think of buying for ourselves!
End result: I didn’t have to buy a new watch for my husband anymore. And the bonus was, God gave me a new watch for myself!
But more than the watches, we continue to be blessed by God’s perfect timing – if we just wait for it.
As a result of similar experiences like this, I’m learning that if I have some doubt about buying anything major, I don’t make the purchase first. I wait until I’m sure that the purchase is a good one before buying it.
I’m learning that God gives us this uneasy feeling when He wants us to postpone or reconsider a decision. In essence, there no sense of peace about it.
In other situations, God presents a better option if we wait. But if we are driven, for example, by a sense of greed that’s why we’re rushing into something, the end result will always be destructive.
Greed can make us impatient, nasty, quickly grabbing things or people with hardly any thought about what God really wants for us. Greed can make us miss God’s perfect timing.
It can actually lead us right into disaster.
Many people have lost money, their good reputation, business opportunities, a breakthrough in their marriages – because they couldn’t wait for God’s confirmation and perfect timing.
Like a lady I know who we counseled not to rush into a relationship just because her husband had left for abroad and abandoned her. We suggested that she wait for God to move; to keep herself pure, faithful to her husband, and focus instead on raising her children well. But she didn’t wait on God. She made a huge mistake.
A few years later, her husband returned – ready to reconcile with her. But alas, upon discovering that his wife was in an intimate relationship with another man, he didn’t push through with the reconciliation. In a devastating turn of events, both their lives ended painfully, disastrously. Their children continue to suffer from the wounds of their parents’ broken marriage, and being orphaned at a young age.
When we refuse to wait for God’s perfect timing, when we refuse to do things God’s way – we will head straight to a horrific ending.
