In His perfect timing, He orchestrates a wonderous and wildly symphonic life flowing through those who are willing to live according to His rhythms
I didn’t even get excited about a possible dream-come-true type of opportunity that just came randomly my way. Or, maybe I did for a split second before my defense mechanisms kicked in and didn’t allow me to pass a certain point of entertaining the thoughts of, “What if this is what I have been waiting and praying for?”.
Disappointment is such a strong deterrent of finding joy in a moment seeming to lack promise. The dreams that God fulfills in our lives can come when we least expect it.
I was told by a dear older man something his grandmother used to tell him and it has stuck to my heart since, reminding me of a simple truth.
“He is an On-Time God,” she would say to him.
Why does it sometimes . . . no, many times, feel the truth is precisely and more accurately the opposite?
Getting our hopes up for something that ends up not working out. It happens to us all and that would seem to be the perpetrator here of where we face the fear of that happening again in each new opportunity that comes our way. As disappointment would have it, our souls are gut-punched. As our spirits heave for oxygen from the wind being knocked out of us, our hearts are quick at work building new defenses in an attempt to not allow ourselves to be disappointed in that way again.
Sadly we call this “maturity.”
I would admittedly call it cynicism.
It is subtle for sure . . . so much so that it would appear to be sensible and logical. For many, I have seen it used as a sort of wisdom, all though it is only an attempt to rid ourselves of pain we have deemed unnecessary. It is a grand gesture at self-preservation. There should be no surprise there, for the second we enter this world, we think of protecting and saving ourselves.
Being a child of God means we can relinquish that of an orphan’s mentality and embrace our loving savior who is Jesus Christ to be wrapped within the confident safety of our strong Father. His Spirit lives within us to lead us through a life that will be inevitably painful. Our hope is this: this life was meant to be more than merely facing unavoidable pain and striving to avoid the pain we can.
It can be a life full of passion and trust and love beyond anything that would attempt to destroy our souls. God offers this to us, without conditions and without remorse. He is not fickle nor indecisive in His pursuit of our hearts. Yet, we struggle with wanting control to avoid disappointment and pain when faced with life’s unexpectedly unfair adjustments in our journey.
I am not even talking about us trying to manipulate a situation or circumstance in order to avoid some kind of negative result.
I am talking about the deeper part of the intangible things we are thinking and feeling which make life real for us.
I am talking about what happens when we are in a situation that looks similar to a time when we were let down. A time when we were left with the heart break of disappointment seeping into cracks we never even knew were there and we began to sink. That would cause anybody to want to avoid at all cost another reoccurring incident we don’t want to go through again.
So we take control of our emotions and thoughts and don’t allow them to bypass certain defenses we have created for ourselves in hopes to avoid and resist pain.
Before we are tempted to consider this a kind of wisdom or even “guarding” of the heart, let us be reminded of how Jesus lived.
He faced pain head on and didn’t act otherwise fake or betray His heart. Yet we betray our hearts when we don’t allow ourselves to be fully honest in our reaction to what would seem unsure and might let us down. I have seen many of us do this.
Because we sometimes fear being childish with how we live we may deny the child-likeness in our souls.
This would tragic.
We have been deceived into thinking they are one of the same.
Yet, all the while we are somehow shocked at our lack of faith and willingness to trust our heavenly Father with our lives as a child would.
If we are suppressing the child-like heart within ourselves, we are in-turn losing what flourishes form it.
We lose our child-like faith.
We lose our child-like trust.
We even lose our youthful passion and innocent way of seeing the world around us that is un-touched by the cynicism in the fallen world we live in.
We may have listened more to the news stations or talk radio than we have our Father’s voice.
We may have believed the lies out to destroy our child-like way we are to live with God which brings us hope and gives us life.
One thing is certain.
God doesn’t play our little games.
He stands firm with His plans.
In His perfect timing He orchestrates a wonderfully and captivatingly symphonic life flowing through those who are willing to live according to His rhythms.
His timing may not be our own, but it is glorious nonetheless, lacking nothing. Only disappointment can alter our course away from His and change our focus from not going through pain again.
What we do with our disappointment will determine who we become.
What we do with the pain we face every day determines indefinitely the way we see our lives and the world around us.
He is on time with His plans. We are the ones who can deviate far off course from His plans and be disappointed by our own.
I was convicted the other day about how I reacted to an opportunity that should have been an exciting and celebratory surprise. It was a possible opportunity that was very much a big deal. It wasn’t even for sure or promised but only an idea that would have to still be ran by a few “important” people first. I acted though as if this sort of opporutniy came every day and was no big deal at all. I went about my business as usual and sort of put it to the back of my mind.
I mentioned it to my Mom only because we happened to spend some time together that day. We talked about it for a bit but I never said a word about it to anyone else. The opportunity just sort of sat there helplessly being choked out by my willful indifference to it as I attempted to not allow my hopes to rise.
I have been praying the past 5 years for God to bring me an opportunity of this nature and when He did, I treated it as though I had been asked my interest in working at Starbucks down the street.
I acted like it was no big deal.
Why?
I know I chose to not get excited because it is not a sure thing so I didn’t want to get excited over something that wasn’t promised.
I know better than that.
I know my God is good and I know He is an On-Time God. Yet my child-like faith and reaction was forced below deck as I allowed fear of disappointment to be the captain.
“This may not work out so don’t get excited because it isn’t worth the disappointment again like all the other times before,” cynicism barked without giving me a choice. “We have been let down too many times by our own expectations and excitement.”
Is that true though?
Could we honestly say it was our excitement that let us down?
Absolutely not.
Our lack of child-like faith will always let us down.
Whether or not this opportunity even works out isn’t even the issue here. That opportunity coming to my doorstep and knocking should have been enough cause for celebration and excitement to be allowed even in a child-like manner. It’s not every day I get offered an incredible opportunity like the one I was, yet I folded under the fear. I know God wanted it to be exciting for me, and to be really honest, I wanted it to be for myself too regardless of it being anything at all. I have been waiting on His timing and to say the very least, it has been an extremely difficult and painful journey up to this point. Yet, He has given me hope through an opportunity that could be all I have been waiting for, and I treat it as though it was a fluke.
If you have been waiting for rain, wouldn’t you celebrate every dark cloud the wind blows your way?
Even if the cloud didn’t end up raining on you, if you are thirsty enough, wouldn’t you be looking for the next one that could? As long as there were clouds headed your way, you would have a hope that eventually one of them would burst into the rain fall you had been hoping for.
This is not how we tend to live but it doesn’t mean we can’t learn to live this way.
I am talking about living from our hearts here.
I am talking about allowing our hearts to be resilient to the pain and allowing God to pick us up and dust the cynicism off of our souls to regain His renewed hopeful perspective.
Maybe you have been waiting for a cloud to come for a very long time. When the desert is proven dry and disappointment is convincing with a pretty good case, rain is your only hope.
I know God has sent clouds your way. They may have opened up a little but nothing near the big one you have desired for some time. But He never leaves us without hope, and with every cloud He sends, it is a reminder that He has not forgotten about us.
A child-like faith is telling you, “This one could be it.”
Cynicism is screaming at you, “Just act like it is not it so you don’t risk getting disappointed.”
I think if we were honest, we want to be the kind of man who doesn’t allow our past disappointments to dictate how we embrace new opportunities regardless of where they take us or where they don’t.
We all want passionate spirits thriving inside of our being. We want that kind of aliveness to hold the standard of how we live and how we take on the waves and wilds of life.
We were designed this way that no matter what life would bring, we would be found securely full of hope in our Creator.
That day, with our mouths open and faces raised to the heavens as rain pours down finally upon our life’s wondrous journey with Him, let one thought be dancing around in child-like displays of excitement.
He is an On-Time God.
