God's Timing For Your Life

EVERYTHING MUST HAPPEN IN SEASON

We serve a God who holds times and seasons in His hands. He lives outside of the time that we operate by. He exists outside of the confines of this earth. Nothing happens without His awareness. He is able to do that which He said He would. He is able to set free, deliver and give us the desires of our hearts when we delight in Him. He is able to do that and much more. But why does it feel like we miss Him? Why does it feel like no matter how hard we try, it doesn’t happen?

The key component to this is time. Time is the linear “schedule” that we operate under in earth. In the greek text, this is called chronos. This is the root of “chronological” which we understand as sequential passing of time….minutes, days, and years.

Because our God holds everything in His hands (Daniel 2:21), when we are called to operate in season as scripture calls, or to watch and pray, it is to provoke a response and awareness of us to be in alignment with God’s kingdom.

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven...

Ecclesiastes 3:1

As those who are currently living under heaven, there are timelines and appointed purposes that God has set, called kairos time. These are seasons and times that are outside of linear occurrences. When the appointed times of God intersect with our chronos time here on earth, we encounter God’s timing.

For example, Abraham was told in Genesis 15 that there would be captivity for the people that he would be a father to, however, from that moment to when the law was received was 430 years (Gal 3:17). Why? Because there is a set time. Moses was born but it would take 80 years for him to deliver Israel (Acts 7:17-35). Why? There was a set time for the deliverance of the people. Jesus was born and it was another 30 years before His ministry on Earth began. Why? Because there is a set time.

The timeline of God is specific and appointed, not to be manipulated, taken into our own hands, or sped up in prayer.

When scripture says that there is a season for everything and a time for every purpose, it means exactly that. There is a time and season for every desire God places in our heart, every ministerial launching, every conference, and every relationship.

We serve a God who operates the times and the seasons and instead of yielding to it and being processed in His time, we magnify the desires of our hearts and dwell on the prophetic words and the cares of this world to think we can wield time in our hands. We entertain thoughts that if we pray hard enough, fast enough and put forth more effort that we will see it comes to pass as we think it should. But that is operating outside of His appointed time (kairos), thus making it useless.

Life occurrences will happen during God’s timing if we seek to align with Him. Our human nature desiring things to happen now, ahead of time, or ‘awakening love too soon’ causes us to grow in resentment, and sometimes even be gravely upset with God, thus distorting our view of Him. We do not live according to the course of this world (Eph 2:2). Our standard of time is not to be measured by the things around us but by the standard and timeline of heaven.

The key to time is being fully satisfied by the One who sits outside of time.

This empowers us to “wait” on the Lord, which strengthens us. When we bypass waiting, we bypass the process. We try and game the system; thinking that by getting what we want, the need to be processed will just go away. True waiting is processing and preparation, something no believer wanting to be used by God can bypass.

YOU CANNOT CONTROL TIME, YOU CAN ONLY OBEY HIM IN YOUR SEASON

Because times and seasons are His, our greatest posture is to obey Him. Over the centuries with instant gratification becoming normal, we have lost the discipline and ability to wait in a world where everything is convenient.

Where the word of a king is, there is power; And who may say to him, “What are you doing?”

He who keeps his command will experience nothing harmful; And a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment,

Because for every matter there is a time and judgment, Though the misery of man increases greatly.

For he does not know what will happen; So who can tell him when it will occur?

No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, And no one has power in the day of death.

There is no release from that war, And wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it.

Ecclesiastes 8:4-8

Wise men obey the king. The inner war we face is often because of our lack of obedience in season and an attempt to move things forward to satisfy the “calling” on our lives that has often been elevated over the highest call of sonship. We war because of our fleshly desires (James 4:1-3). We proclaim that it is our season for (insert desire here) and when it has not happened we shake our fist wondering why He has not done it for us like He did for others. Or we think we need to do more, do it differently, get more strategy…when really, we missed asking, “Is it my season for that?” Or “what are You doing in me in this season?” Ecclesiastes 8 breaks down the heart and the misery we carry by awaiting our time or a judgement.

We do not have power over the will and plan of God and yet declare things out of season, or choose our own will to make an Ishmael instead of waiting on Isaac.

In doing this, we begin to operate unknowingly in witchcraft. For example, in 1 Samuel 15, King Saul defied the Lord based on people pleasing and his own insecurity. The Prophet Samuel told him that the spirit of God had left him. King Saul attempts to try and sway Samuel to say something that is pleasing, but it cannot be so. What God said is true and final. Because of this, we see King Saul’s descent to madness. He even begins to consult a medium (1 Samuel 28). King Saul was attempting to reach for anything that would be different from what God told him when he should have simply obeyed. He wanted to hold on to the title of king and kill David by any means necessary. If King Saul had been intentional to know the Lord his God like the law said he should (Deut 18:18-20) maybe he would have simply obeyed his season. Maybe he would not have disobeyed and tried to wield time in his hand. Maybe the inner war and misery would not have increased in him. But we would never know, we can only learn.

By focusing on things that are out of our season, we do a disservice to the body. We end up launching ministries, conferences and movements that still need to be bathed in prayer.

We look to birth things that we don’t have the character or formation to walk in.

We push forward when the resistance is not the enemy, it’s the Lord in His mercy trying to get us to yield. We force and quote scripture incorrectly such as “The violent take it by force” all without consulting the Lord if now is the time. David asked if and when he should pursue (1 Sam 23 & 30, 2 Samuel 2 & 5).

When we realize we are called to something, the last thing we want to do is wait. Sometimes the wait is short, but sometimes it is indeed years, or decades. That is the answer many of us do not want to hear. We do not want to hear that we’re pulling against time, not with it. We do not want to hear that what we’re launching does not have the backing of heaven because well we’ve wasted so much time already. We want to control the spirit, but we cannot.

We do not want to hear that by operating outside of the will and timing of God, we begin to do works of the flesh (Gal 5:19-21). For example, say someone believes they were to open a kingdom business. Immediately that person begins to build a business plan, look for a storefront and open a new instagram page for the business. They launch. The person does not pray about WHEN God says they are to open the business. The person does not wait for the timing of the Lord. Instead, they go full speed ahead and when permits get declined or people don’t engage, they claim it is the devil. Is it? This is what it looks like to operate outside the timing of God.

Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to give them power. The disciples did not leave on day 39. They waited their full allotted time for 40 days and received the Holy Spirit, changing the world. When we are given instructions, we need to be sheep who follow those exact instructions—nothing more, nothing less. This keeps us aligned to what the King in the kingdom of God is doing. Our only job is to keep the commandment of the King (Ecc 8.)

It has been said that we should write the vision and make it plain. Many of us in prophetic and apostolic circles write many visions and lose hope when it has not come to pass, having tried to run with it. However, we must understand the key in that verse.

Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

Habakkuk 2:2-3

The vision given is for an apointed time. Writing the visions, dreams and downloads from the Lord, and wanting to push them forth out of the season and will of God is what creates much frustration and resentment in us. There is a time. There is a season. And it is not in our jurisdiction to command it outside of the leading and timing of God.

THE REVOLVING DOOR & REPEATED SEASON

The lack of processing has been clouding our wait and time. Many of us have various character issues that have repeatedly been brought to our attention through friends, family, spouses and ultimately the Holy Spirit. However, instead of seeking healing, we wonder why our hearts desire has not been answered. In Exodus, Moses had anger from the very beginning which resulted in him murdering a man. However, the issue of Moses’ anger was displayed on multiple occasions after this. Moses smashing the tablets (Ex 32:19) and hitting the rock (Numbers 20:9-12). While Moses was righteously frustrated with the Israelites, his issue was anger and this anger caused him to miss the promise land. Because the root of the anger was not addressed when he first killed a man, it remained under the surface, lying in wait for a perfect opportunity. Moses’ anger was a constant repeat in the book of Exodus because it was not snuffed out.

When you repeat seasons due to your lack of obedience, you begin to waste time wandering in the wilderness instead of being where you’re supposed to be.

If a child is constantly failing their senior year of high school, they simply cannot graduate. If we are constantly failing the test of a season, we’re in a revolving door until we complete it. As believers we must graduate past the inability to yield our hearts to the Lord. It has caused us much pain and loss of years. Our inability to address the childhood wounds, traumas, disappointments and failures have kept our souls sick and much like Moses, it causes us to strike rocks and miss our seasons. We have missed enough time as believers. We have missed windows of time that can only be brought back by way of mercy. And the redeeming nature of God is that it may not come back, and that’s okay.

We are in a time where the world needs the people of God to leave the revolving door and step into the places and spaces they’re called to. God in His mercy can absolutely restore the years the locusts ate, but again it must be on HIS time.

HOW DO YOU UTILIZE YOUR TIME?

Time requires a response from us—to steward it well. Many of us focus so much on what we don’t have and have not found the beauty in the time allotted to us.

We have been created and called for a specific hour in history, and we must work while it is day.

'And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.'

Luke 12:42-48

How we utilize our time should never be flippant, but it is deeply vital to who we become and where we will go.  Jesus tells us to watch, pray and discern the times. However, many of us in the body live like the evil servant who says, “My master is delaying his coming.” We constantly tell ourselves we have time as though we can wield it. We tell others that it’s no big deal but for those who discern the times and seasons, they recognize how short the window of time is. They recognize how every day and every moment is vital. They recognize that moving in tandem with the Spirit of God will accomplish what God has appointed to hit the earth.

How we utilize our day to day determines if we are ready for His appointed times in our lives.

For the scripture is clear, “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much.” We must become people who are faithful with our chronos. We must be faithful with the day to day, giving our days, schedules and time to the Lord. And we do this not so that we can get something out of it, but we do this because those who love Him obey Him.

If we utilize our time to fall deeper in awe of Jesus, how we will steward and take care of the new thing we’re desiring will be done with much fear of the Lord. How we use our 24 hours, how we yield will naturally cause us to align with His kairos. But we must be people who do not let our selfish ambitions or “good” ideas, or even unhealed areas pull on and overtake what God is telling us to do.

That is a time to ask the Lord to further refine you. It’s a time to increase in the fear of the Lord, learning to obey His voice without hesitation. His timing is perfect, it is simply up to us to steward ours well, and we have the Helper, His Spirit.

I pray our zeal never outruns wisdom, but that we stay ever burning for Him who will make all things work in due time.