Trusting God’s Timing

So he said, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head;
but the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”

Zechariah 1:21 (NKJV)

Faith in God is not just appreciating God’s sacrifice of His only Son, His adoption of us into His royal family, and His redemption that brought our salvation. Faith in God is also trusting His timing.

That timing often includes burdens before blessing, silence before speech, ambivalence before revelation, struggle before success, and “not enough” before “more than enough.”

God’s timing is eternal and not reactive. God leads our lives with precise and intended timing. But part of that right timing can include growth, maturation, and the receipt of power only on the back end of severe threat, challenge, conflict, and confrontation.

Zechariah the prophet had a vision of four horns symbolizing nations that attacked Judah and scattered her. But before there was a chance for the threat of these strong horns to sink in, the prophet also saw four craftsmen. These craftsmen are used by God to overthrow the horns that have threatened and scattered Judah.

I suggest that this text is attempting to teach us that there are times when you have to see threatening horns before you witness defending craftsmen. In other words, we need to be reminded and become convicted of the truth that there are times you can’t fully appreciate the power of God to deliver without the feeling of—and the experience of—the pain of being scattered.

Judah can only appreciate the deliverance from 70 years of captivity because of how hard those years were and what those years demanded. But in the end, to watch God deliver, to watch God destroy every enemy and every threat and return them to their land, restore them to their history, resource them for their protection, and revive them so that they are renewed—it all points to the fact that God rightly defines the timing for everything.

The question that all of us have to wrestle with is, do we trust that God is better able than we are to define right timing?

Trusting the timing of God is strongly linked to our knowledge of—and faith in—His person, His goodness, His power, and His protection.

Will you trust God’s timing in your life today?