Timing

There’s an old expression, “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” The original expression (“The early bird gets the worm.”) was intended to emphasize that it’s generally better to be early. Of course, if you stop and think about it, even if you’re talking just about birds and worms, the early worm gets eaten, but the worm that sleeps in survives (at least for a while). Realistically though, the right timing is very important, and sometimes being early is just as wrong as being late.

In Numbers, when the children of Israel first reach the promised land, Moses picks one man from each tribe to go in and spy out the land; what is God giving us, and what do we have to do to claim it? (wait, we have to claim what God gives us? Yes, as a matter of fact, we do, but that’s a subject for another day) Ten of the spies came back with stories of how big the Canaanites were, and how well armed they were, but Joshua and Caleb came back with tales of how nice the land was, how big the grapes were, and how big the cities that the Canaanites had built for the Israelites were. Apparently the others were not aware of the curse that had been placed on the Canaanites (Genesis 9:25). Joshua and Caleb tried to convince the people that it didn’t matter how mighty the Canaanites were, God had promised the Israelites this land, and He would be with them to defeat the Canaanites. Unfortunately, the people became discouraged, and God told them to back and wander around in the wilderness. Some of he people realized that they had been wrong, and belatedly tried to talk Israel into invading the land of Canaan anyway. Moses told them that it was too late, that they had missed the will of God, and that they needed to wait. Some of them attempted to invade anyway, and were slaughtered. The timing was wrong, and, really, God had decided that He didn’t want the nay-sayers going into the promised land anyway. So, Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years until the only adults left from that incident were Joshua and Caleb.

Other times, people were told to wait on God. King Saul once got into trouble because he was supposed to wait for the man of God, Samuel, but he got impatient, or scared that the enemy was going to attack before Samuel’s arrival, and so he “forced himself” to offer a sacrifice to the Lord early. He got in trouble for that. You see, sometimes when it seems like God has abandoned us, He’s just waiting for the right time. Sometimes it’s a test, to see if we will wait on God, or whether we will try to do things on our own. Sometimes even “good” things can get us into trouble, if it’s outside of God’s will, if it isn’t the right time to fit His plan. It’s important that we do things in God’s time, even if it seems that God is taking too long, or that God hasn’t heard us at all.