The Little Known Key to Beauty

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says: “Everything is beautiful in its time”.

Seems a silly thing to say, right? Why not just say “Everything is beautiful”?

But it isn’t. Beauty takes time.

A good way to miss God is by simply not paying attention to what time it is.

The world runs on time. It makes sense that God’s kingdom runs on timing, too.

I heard of someone who had a bad habit of leaving the water running and walking away from it.

Over and over again, she would miss out on timing, and before long, she was replacing her flooring, her drywall, her kitchen…

Timing is everything!

There’s a timing belt in an engine to make sure everything happens exactly on time. I’ve worked in a food service business, and timing is important there, too.

People don’t like to wait on their food. I certainly don’t.

Obviously, the moment that order is placed, it’s a race against the clock to get the food perfect and ready…on time.

But in God’s kingdom, we sit around and wonder what in the world is taking God so long. Why can’t He move already?!

Timing takes awhile.

Someone asked God: “Why can’t I do great miracles? Why can’t I walk in signs and wonders more? Why can’t? What makes other people so special?”

“You can,” God said. “You just haven’t grown up yet.”

Yes, it’s true. You grow up spiritually the same as you grow up physically.

I’m convinced that every experience on the earth–from speaking in other languages to being drunk to getting high off drugs, all of it–has a higher, spiritual form in God’s kingdom.

God told me one day that I was supposed to buy a truck. The moment I saw it, I felt: “This is my truck”.

But it wasn’t time for it yet.

See, I had a woodworking business all planned out, and that truck was one of the final pieces of the jigsaw. I’d use the truck to deliver my endtables and beds and etc. that I built.

But that’s not what God had for me in that moment. I even knew in my own heart God was telling me to wait.

But I didn’t want to. Not initially.

Someone else had to tell me: “are you sure it’s time for that right now?” before I finally stopped and acknowledged what I knew already.

It wasn’t time for it that day. It wasn’t time for it the next day. It wasn’t even time for it the day after that.

For years afterwards, the truck was for sale. I would even go to it and sit in the truck and imagine driving it around, much like a little kid might fantasize about driving a big dump truck someday.

I had the capability to drive the truck. I was of age. I had the skills.

But it went deeper than that. God didn’t want to just give me a truck. During this time, God was breaking me of relying on a false self–of using my choice of vehicle or relationships or what others thought of me to get a feeling of worth and confidence. Using all these false things to prop myself up.

None of those things would give me real confidence.

Real confidence comes from knowing God’s love and provision for us in the here and now.

Being able to step out into the unknown as God leads, knowing that there is an invisible Substance that will sustain me no matter what.

That invisible Substance is God’s love. That “coat of many colors” that will uphold me, support me, provide for me.

I was addicted to looking for a feeling of worth in other places. Because I kept going there, God was stripping me of those other things.

I even knew God was in the middle of teaching me that.

So, yes, I could’ve gotten the truck. I could’ve gotten impatient, bought a truck, moved on with my life.

But what God was dealing with me on, which was:

Learning how still my crazy, restless heart to wait on Him(like it says, “be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10)

Learning how to find real confidence, not the fake kind

Both of those lessons wouldn’t have magically disappeared just because I got impatient.

It would’ve just taken longer for me to grasp those things.

So timing is very important.

I had a reverence for that. In my heart, I felt it.

So the truck sat there. The title wasn’t in my name. I would go sometimes and sit in the truck, and imagine driving off with it.

But God said wait.

He kept dealing with my heart. Kept bringing me back to Him.

I heard once about a person who died and went to Heaven, and this man saw a room in Heaven where everyone was in a classroom, learning in school.

I believe that’s true. God has us all in School, whether we know it or not.

We can play hooky or cheat on our courses, but you don’t get to advance to the next grade until you pass.

I waited until the truck got sold to someone else. I waited until eight years later, when I knew it was finally time.

And, then, miraculously, God brought the truck God had told me to buy back to me.

Why did I wait all that time?!

God worked real confidence and stability into my foundation because of my sacrifice.

What’s more? It looked for awhile like I had totally screwed up and missed out on my dream truck.

In reality, God took the truck so it could be fixed up and totally worked on, repainted, outfitted, and everything.

God even gave me another truck nearly identical to the original for a crazy good deal. So that way, when I sold the other truck, it paid for the original.

How good is God?!?!

It was beautiful. But beholding that beauty took time.

Life is full of it. Most people don’t understand timing.

They don’t understand that when you plant a seed in the ground, there’s a reason you don’t instantly have an ear of corn in your hand. It takes time.

Patience, endurance, the ability to withstand everything, is a crucial key, then.

Jeremiah 29:11 says: “‘for I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future’ ”.

Those sound glorious!!!

Don’t they? Doesn’t that fill you with hope and expectation?! What’s God got in His heart about us, anyway? Don’t you want to know?

Psalm 27:13, 14 says: “...I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord”.

After all, “those that wait on the Lord shall mount up on wings like eagles”...(Isaiah 40:31)

Learning to still the restless, anxious soul, learning to abide in the shadow of the most High, learning how to stay steadfast to wait on God…that’s important part to seeing God move.

Even Jesus, son of God, had to practice patience!

The Messiah walked around, ate drank, grew up, and yet didn’t receive the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove until His 30th birthday. Not until He made perfect, made mature.

THEN God anointed Him.

King David was the same way. He had been prophesied to be king of Israel as a ruddy, scrappy teenaged shepherd. But God had to make him ready, too. God sent him to the king’s house so David could familiarize himself with the king’s ways.

Then God taught him to be a warrior in the fields watching his father’s sheep, to watch over his flock.

Then God taught him to transfer those warlike skills to the actual battlefield as David faced Goliath.

Then God taught David endurance, patience, and even compassion as God’s own anointed, King Saul, hunted young David like a dog.

Then, finally, David was prepared to be the glorious king God had anointed him. Then, finally, he was ready.

We are being made ready for what God has next–right now, right here, is happening. It’s more real than we can imagine.

“Wait, I say, on the Lord”.

I’m excited, you guys. God’s got something glorious up His sleeves for us.

Wait for it!