Choosing to look for God’s long arch and ultimate, perfect purposes
By Dean Collins
We all have a tendency toward wanting life to be more picnics and promotions and less famine and servanthood. Our tendency is to want this moment to be more like Heaven or Eden now and less like our current situation of only glimpsing God’s will on earth as it is in Heaven. We look for Heaven on earth now instead of doing our part now to slowly and steadily bring the final renewal and restoration God has promised. And our tendencies may lead us even to an attitude of entitlement about our roles in this life now while we wait eagerly for Jesus to return.
The problem with our focus on wanting it, whatever it is, now versus in God’s timing is that our insistence will lead us to unmet expectations and result in disappointments that rob our daily joy.
Now . . . or later
God can and does do the miraculous. When we read Scripture we discover dramatic interventions that came by the hand of God. The beggar at the temple was instantly changed when Peter and John reached out their hands with the touch of the Holy Spirit. Countless examples in Scripture describe pain, hunger, and difficulty overturned in a moment. But there are also many examples of the long and slow arch of God’s redemption, rescue, and restoration. Our preferences and our tendencies are to want what we want the way we want it now instead of waiting for what may be the divine time when God makes things beautiful.
The Scriptures are filled with examples of many who had the faith, wisdom, and courage to trust the long arch of God’s plan. They resisted the tendency to expect God always to rush in and make life the way they wanted it to be. They didn’t rush, as we so often do, to the end game over waiting for the process and timing of God’s providence.
Waiting for reward
After the resurrection of the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings 4, we come to chapter 8 where Elisha told the woman to get up and sojourn wherever she could because the Lord had called for a famine. It wasn’t a long, hot summer coming; it was a seven-year famine. None of us can fully explain why God allows, or in this case appears to orchestrate, difficult seasons. With faith, we may seek and receive wisdom from God, but that does not make us as smart as God. We will never fully comprehend the omniscience of God. But our faith calls us to trust him, including his timing.
The Shunammite woman did as she was told and went to the land of the Philistines for seven years. She and her son survived the famine. If she had not followed Elisha’s instructions, perhaps she would not have seen the final results of her obedience.
When she returned, she approached the king to bring an appeal that she be given back her house and her land. Sometime in her seven-year absence, someone had taken possession of what was hers. This remarkable woman not only had strong faith and an obedient spirit. She also had amazing timing! When she approached the king she found the familiar face of Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, telling the king the story of how God enabled Elisha even to raise the dead. That was the very moment the woman and her previously dead son walked into the palace! The passage ends with the king appointing an official to restore all of the property and wealth that this woman possessed before she left on her sojourn.
Looking above
This story takes place centuries before Paul wrote Colossians. But it strikes me that this woman was living a life that included “setting her mind on things above and not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1-2). As people of the resurrection, certainly we must do the same.
As we embrace the long arch of God’s final restoration and renewal of all things, we must trust, as Solomon wisely said, that we can’t and won’t know what “God has done from the beginning to the end.” But we can trust that he is in charge of the perfect timing of all things and that when we surrender fully to his will and his ways we will in fact see that all is beautiful in its time.
Lord, we surrender our tendency to want everything the way we want it, when we want it. We surrender to the timing of your meeting our every need. We trust your sovereignty over our lives and over all creation. We trust your care today and every day. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your time with God’s Word
2 Kings 8:1-6; Colossians 3:1-2; Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV
Photo by Colton Duke on Unsplash
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