God's planning and timing...

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
​~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
​

"Patience is learning to live within God's timing," she said to me, "and believe me, I have learned a lot about God's timing."

She continued to tell me how God's timing is different than God's planning. She shared that "God's planning is our assumption that God plans for good and bad things to happen in our life. God's timing is about how God steps in when we make a poor choice. It's what makes God, 'God.'"

She should know. She has lived a full 101 years of life, and for me, I'm like a student sitting on her footstool, soaking up every word.

Wisdom is something that we all know about, but having the wisdom to discern between God's timing and God's planning is real wisdom that comes with having lived through both.

I think for any of us, our need to make sense of things when they happen to us is really part of our need to find God in every situation, especially when it involves a milestone or life-changing event.

It is part of the reason I still read "The Road Less Traveled," by Robert Frost, and recall that the person in the poem who makes the choice to take the "Road less traveled," and how it, "made all the difference."

God's relationship to us in our life is as Creator, but living that life is filled with options where we will need to make the choice on how it is lived.

The woman who shared her wisdom with me went on to say, "and I am still trying to figure it all out."

For any of us, God's presence is both known and unknown at times. Sometimes we feel the presence of God, and it can't help but overwhelm us. However, there are times when we sit and wonder.

It's both God's timing and planning when we simply live our life, while we always remain in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2018