What College Orientation, 3 Slices of Pizza, and Being a "Strong Independent Woman" Taught Me About God's Timing...

Good Morning my fellow human beings!

Guess what!?!? It’s only 10 days till Christmas! Isn’t that exciting?? Once again, I digress. So I have been thinking a lot lately about God’s timing, which is a really interesting concept to me. It is so crazy to me that God knows what is going to happen and when it’s going to happen before it happens (I know that’s a lot of happens!), and it is all according to his timing.  This thought is comforting; yet extremely frustrating for me because I am one of those people who get an idea on their mind and want it to happen exactly the way I plan it and exactly when I want it to happen.  This frustration I have with the idea of God’s timing all cycle back into the whole “control freak” thing that I talked about yesterday, which makes God’s timing another factor in life I find extremely frustrating.  Although I know God knows exactly what I need and when I need it before I do, I’m just one of those people who kind of want God to give me a sneak peak at what’s coming up in my life so my mind can be put at ease and I can prepare for it.  For a while I would pray for God to give me signs in certain situations, or for clarity on the situation, and then I would get super frustrated because I would receive neither of these.  So I would get angry with God and be like “dude come on just one little hint so I can chill out.”  Then after those some what heated conversations with God (well at least heated from my end), and I had chilled out a little bit I would experience situations or see these little things that I would THINK were signs from God, but even now I still don’t know if they were signs from him, or a completely ironic situations.  As I continued this vicious cycle (which honestly has taken place 18 years of my life), I began to get frustrated and tired because I just couldn’t figure out where my life was going anymore, or what God was trying to do with me.  One week this semester I came across two bible stories, and a bible verse that basically opened my eyes and forced me to accept (and accept it graciously) the idea of God’s timing.  The first story was the story of Sarah and her impatience.  That bible story opened my eyes to just how much I am like Sarah (lets just say Sarah and I both try to take things into our own hands and end up screwing everything up), which helped me realize I needed to work on my patience when it concerns God’s plan for my life (hopefully my impatience won’t ever cause wars between tribes for hundreds of years).  The second story that helped me see the importance of putting my trust in God and God’s timing was the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac.  That story helped me see that if I truly wanted things to work out the way God wanted them to, God wants me to “sacrifice” (Give) the situation to him (which is frankly extremely difficult for me).  Although both of these stories were very enlightening, one verse brought the whole thing home for me, and that was Ecclesiastes 3:11 (hence my blog name).  This verse states, “He makes everything beautiful in his time.”  This verse really made me realize that what I want in my life doesn’t matter, when I think things should happen in my life doesn’t matter, because God has a grand plan that I know nothing about. Even though I want a “sneak peak” at what’s to come in my life, it isn’t necessary.  I don’t need to see the full picture of what my life will become in every detail (thanks for that advice Josh Clarke, you’re the man), but whatever does happen in my life IS going to be beautiful in GOD’S time.  God’s timing is perfect because he knows EVERYTHING.  I know I went through a “God’s timing” crisis this semester.  So since you guys are my friends I am going to tell you a really personal story (this one is especially for you single girls/guys out there who are single and not understanding why God hasn’t sent you the right person yet). So here it goes….Going into my first semester in college I was coming out of an interesting relationship., so I knew going into college I was not ready for another relationship (AT ALL) and did not want one in the least bit (which is why I specifically said to my Mom before I left, “I’m swearing off boys and I am going to be single for a really long time before I have to deal with another male that won’t leave me alone”).  Ironically, the first day I was at my college for orientation I met this guy who was really interesting/nice, and honestly after meeting him that day I talked to him briefly and figured I probably wouldn’t see him again because he was an upperclassman and I was a freshman so it was all good.  Ironically, I walk into one of my classes on the first day, and guess who was sitting there? Yes my lovely readers you are correct, the interesting/nice orientation guy (whom I also ran into at a cookout later that week when I was soaking wet after a cross country practice and was eating three slices of pizza, super cute right?...that is sarcasm if you didn’t pick up on it).  So, long story short I kept running into him everywhere (and was pretty sure he hated me for the first two weeks, but it was all good because as it turns out he was just a little shy).  As time went on, I gained a great friendship with this guy (and began to realize how much we had in common and how many traits he possessed that I had prayed for in a guy since I was like nine), but I had to fight the idea I was interested in him for weeks because he was my friend.  Then unfortunately I quite fighting those feelings and began to believe, “well maybe this is a God’s thing and I am just being silly about the whole “I’m a strong independent woman who don’t need no relationship thing.”  I began to notice things I thought were signs and answers to prayers (and I am still not sure if they were real or figments of my imagination).  This thought process led to a few uncomfortable situations, and very long story short, him not feeling the same way about me.  That whole situation was very difficult for me because I began to rush God’s timing and question his purposes for my life.  Sometimes I think when God puts a little thing in our life that matches something we have prayed for, we tend to try and take control and rush his timing, but we can’t do that.  We have to be patient and prayerful.  We can’t rush what God is doing in our lives. We have to realize sometimes things are put in our lives for a reason, but not for the reason we think.  Like in my case this guy became an amazing friend to me (and is like this fantastic older brother I’ve never had..as he so affectionatly calls himself haha), and through him I have grown in my faith and met some of my best friends (and plus he gives me chocolate milk and lets me ugly cry when I'm sad...SCORE). So all of these things make me thankful for God's timing. God puts everyone in our lives for a reason. He uses everything he puts in our life to benefit us, and he always fulfills his promises.  So, just because it doesn’t look like God is doing anything now, he is going to do something big in his time, whether that’s concerning a job, school, a relationship, or whatever you need in your life.  God has it under control, and we just have to be patient and wait for him to fulfill it in his time.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lordyour God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31:6