Opening
What in your life did it seem time slowed down for? This might be In a good way in cherishing the moment or in an impatient way in taking far too long.
Context
Israel had waited four hundred years for a Word from God. That word comes in two parts:
- The prophet: John the Baptist – a child that Elizabeth and Zacheriah had waited for their entire lives.
- The Messiah: Jesus Christ – a child that was never expected at all and yet was long for by countless people throughout history.
Sometimes God’s timeline and ours do not align do they? What you have had those times of knowing God can do something, expecting Him to move, and some type of disappointment when things don’t go as you’d like. Maybe the outcome was good, but late or maybe the outcome was nothing of what you wanted at all.
So we ask why. Why, God, did you take so long? Why, God, didn’t you do this or that? Then we might feel guilty for having such questions. I firmly believe that God is big enough to handle my feeble questions, but also that we should ask not in an attitude of insubordination, but in that of genuinely seeking to know. That is something we see in Mary’s interaction with the angel Gabriel when she asks, “How will this be since I am a virgin?”
The great King David shows us another timeline that might drive us to drinking. He is chosen by God to be king but for the next 20 years he is embroiled in battles and on the run before he finally takes the throne. In that time he takes wives, has children, and whole lives are lived waiting for the fulfillment of the promise on his life.
Scripture
Galatians 4:4-5
(Gal 4:4 ESV) But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, (Gal 4:5 ESV) to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Discussion
What is something you have waited on in your life?
How did God play a hand in bringing that to fruition?
Looking back, how do you now see God working all things out leading up to that?
If you could go back and change the events now, would you?
How does that even in your life direct your thoughts looking forward?