In His Time

“And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.’” 

—1 Samuel 13:13

God’s timing is perfect. He is never late, nor early—He’s always right on time. Our perspective on His timing is not perfect however. We lack faith to see through our current circumstances and trust in Him in the midst of difficulties. Taking matters into our own hands when things don’t appear to be going our way, we make the choice we want—but not necessarily what God wants. It’s not soon after that when we start to suffer the consequence of our premature and faithless choice and we wonder how we can go back and make things right.

King Saul didn’t trust in God’s timing and suffered the consequences for it. Before he was to go into battle he was to wait on the prophet Samuel to make a sacrifice to the Lord, but Samuel tarried and Saul’s men were growing impatient and started to desert. Fearful of losing his army, facing a fierce enemy, and lacking faith in God, Saul decided to make the sacrifice himself. No sooner had the sacrifice been made Samuel shows up astonished, heartbroken and angry. Asking why he would do such a thing, Saul begins to offer excuses for himself, but for Samuel it didn’t matter, God had spoken. And the consequence for Saul’s disobedience was that his kingdom would cease with him, it wouldn’t continue on to the next generation—and God would rise up another man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14) to be the leader of His people.

God has a way of taking us to a place where we cannot get by with anything but genuine faith. Faith, like our muscles, must be exercised frequently. And for us, God continually leads us to places where we discover who God is and who we are. We may think that we have faith, but circumstances have a way of bringing to the surface what we really believe and who we really place our trust.

Where is your faith right now? Who do you trust in? What circumstances are you facing that you are not waiting on God for? Trust and wait on Him—His timing is perfect. Amen.