God's Timing

This isn't a deep, thoughtful post tonight, just a few idle thoughts abut God's timing in our lives.  My regular readers know my fondness for a quote I found, supposedly by former President Jimmy Carter. He basically said that God always answers a prayer. Sometimes he says Yes; sometimes he says No; and sometimes he says, "You've got to be kidding." I do love that one.

Anyhow, when I look back at the times in my life when something seemed impossible to work out, I am awed by the way the solution(s) unfolded. God's timing, in retrospect in human time, is incredibly perfect.

I was thinking about that the past few days. Our small charity crafting group is very busy in the winter here in Vegas. We rarely get below the mid-20s at night. But if you have ever experienced the desert chill, you realize how cold the homeless folks must be on that chilly concrete that often forms their bed.

For us, all seniors on fixed incomes, making the hats, scarves and fingerless gloves for our local homeless, it means we are often scavenging for affordable yarn. One of our gals is a miracle worker when it comes to scouting all the local thrift shops. Another haunts Craigslist and eBay. I'm good at Freecycle. Still, it can be tricky "finding" enough sources of inexpensive but suitable yarn for our projects.

So, it is always amazing to me that suddenly someone will bring us 18 or 20 skeins of yarn they "found" in their shed. Or another person will hand us yarn that their mom or aunt had left in their stash when their poor arthritic hands could no longer work with it any longer.

That's the way it was, here and there, the past two weeks. Small batches of yarn "appeared" and we divided it up among us. It will keep the projects going another couple of weeks.

That's just one example of God's timing in my life. Things like this happen in other ways, too. The answers to life's problems just "appear" when it almost looks like I've run out of time or I'm at the end of my rope. 

I remember praying for years that my live-in nephew would be able to quit smoking before he ended up with COPD like his mother did. I was about to quit praying on that matter when suddenly, August 25 of last year, he quit. It will be five months the 25th of this month.

 

Some prayers take a long time, and perhaps that's because I am asking for the wrong solution. Sometimes I need to just state my worry and ask God to handle the matter, and just turn it over to his capable hands.

Now, I've got to admit that I am human. Many times, I know in my heart that God will answer my prayers. But, being human, I frequently get close to giving up. What always amazes me is the quality of his answer - it is always exactly what I need, even if not exactly what I asked for.

 Father, thank you for always answering my prayers even when I've asked for the wrong thing. You always know what I need, even if it's not what I wanted.