Tracking Detail
Received an e-mail the other day which updated me on the status of a package I had ordered last week. (See below.)
Tracking Number: 1Z 763 9X0 03 7435 824 5
Type: Package
Status: In Transit – On Time
Scheduled Delivery: 07/03/2008
Shipped/Billed On: 06/27/08
Service: Ground
Weight: 4.10 Lbs
Multiple Packages: 2
Yet the line that caught my eye was the one which stated quite unambiguously: In Transit – On Time.
Now, while I think it kind of cool that I can know that my shipment left Columbus, Ohio at 12:18 AM on the 28th, and that it hit “adverse weather” conditions when it got to San Pablo, California, what fascinates me is that sometimes God volunteers information like this about His activity. Certainly we have no reason to be privy to all of the work He is going about, but there are times when, for the sheer grace of it, He discloses to us that what He has promised is “in transit – on time.”
Habakkuk 2:3 comes to mind:
“For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come and will not delay.”
Perhaps He, being ‘mindful of our frame’ (Psalm 103:14) and that we are still so prone to “sight,” chooses to encourage us with the exhortation that He is always going about His work (John 5:17), and that we are called to ‘patiently wait,’ so as to ‘obtain the promise’ (Heb. 6:15).
The interesting thing about the tracking detail I received was that it accurately hits on two of the biggest lies which intervene in the interim, when we are still awaiting the unfolding of what He has spoken over our lives.
For one, there is the lie that God doesn’t have His work “in transit;” the fearfulness that He has delayed even initiating (let alone completing) what He has sworn to do. Take Abraham. Genesis 16 starts out with the stark reminder: “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children” (v. 1). The circumstances caused him to doubt the adequacy of God’s way. The error wasn’t in wanting what God had promised, but in declaring through action that what God had voluntarily vowed to bestow wasn’t His desire to truly give.
Yet Psalm 89:34 reassures us with God’s unchanging nature: “My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips.” And Hebrews 6 emphasizes that “God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath” (v. 17). He promised, not in order to pacify us, as if He were reluctant to give good (see Psalm 81:16), but to state all the more emphatically that He was in the process of accomplishing the very work which even the utterance of His mouth avowed to as credible.
For another, the tracking status hits on the flawed notion that God’s work isn't “on time.” Take Saul. When Samuel didn’t come ‘within the appointed days’ (1 Sam. 13:11), Saul went ahead and offered the burnt sacrifice for which he should have waited. It was easier to see Samuel's coming [and ultimately, God’s timing] as ‘out of alignment,’ and to believe - especially when Saul was still met with a void of what was foretold - that he must take matters into his own hands if he were to “secure” from the Lord the deliverance or favor that he desired (see v. 12).
And yet we know that God’s manner is to act in the perfect moment; that “there is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven…” as Ecclesiastes 3:1 declares. He is not, as we sometimes surmise, dragging His feet to furnish what His words have caused us to expect. Instead, He is both strategic and precise in the moment He has elected, and gracious to remind us, when the fulfillment is manifested, that His ways were always completely wise, because all “His work is perfect” (Deut. 32:4).
And so, when it is that the ‘revelation lingers,’ we are called not to despair that God will fail to deliver what He has promised, but that – even down to the “transit” and “timing” – He is the One who has never failed to complete what He has begun. For, even in our waiting, we can anticipate fully and with gratitude His completion of what He has vowed; that, ‘with respect to the promise of God,’ we ‘not waver in unbelief but grow strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is able also to perform’ (Romans 4:20-21).
Tracking Number: 1Z 763 9X0 03 7435 824 5
Type: Package
Status: In Transit – On Time
Scheduled Delivery: 07/03/2008
Shipped/Billed On: 06/27/08
Service: Ground
Weight: 4.10 Lbs
Multiple Packages: 2
Yet the line that caught my eye was the one which stated quite unambiguously: In Transit – On Time.
Now, while I think it kind of cool that I can know that my shipment left Columbus, Ohio at 12:18 AM on the 28th, and that it hit “adverse weather” conditions when it got to San Pablo, California, what fascinates me is that sometimes God volunteers information like this about His activity. Certainly we have no reason to be privy to all of the work He is going about, but there are times when, for the sheer grace of it, He discloses to us that what He has promised is “in transit – on time.”
Habakkuk 2:3 comes to mind:
“For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come and will not delay.”
Perhaps He, being ‘mindful of our frame’ (Psalm 103:14) and that we are still so prone to “sight,” chooses to encourage us with the exhortation that He is always going about His work (John 5:17), and that we are called to ‘patiently wait,’ so as to ‘obtain the promise’ (Heb. 6:15).
The interesting thing about the tracking detail I received was that it accurately hits on two of the biggest lies which intervene in the interim, when we are still awaiting the unfolding of what He has spoken over our lives.
For one, there is the lie that God doesn’t have His work “in transit;” the fearfulness that He has delayed even initiating (let alone completing) what He has sworn to do. Take Abraham. Genesis 16 starts out with the stark reminder: “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children” (v. 1). The circumstances caused him to doubt the adequacy of God’s way. The error wasn’t in wanting what God had promised, but in declaring through action that what God had voluntarily vowed to bestow wasn’t His desire to truly give.
Yet Psalm 89:34 reassures us with God’s unchanging nature: “My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips.” And Hebrews 6 emphasizes that “God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath” (v. 17). He promised, not in order to pacify us, as if He were reluctant to give good (see Psalm 81:16), but to state all the more emphatically that He was in the process of accomplishing the very work which even the utterance of His mouth avowed to as credible.
For another, the tracking status hits on the flawed notion that God’s work isn't “on time.” Take Saul. When Samuel didn’t come ‘within the appointed days’ (1 Sam. 13:11), Saul went ahead and offered the burnt sacrifice for which he should have waited. It was easier to see Samuel's coming [and ultimately, God’s timing] as ‘out of alignment,’ and to believe - especially when Saul was still met with a void of what was foretold - that he must take matters into his own hands if he were to “secure” from the Lord the deliverance or favor that he desired (see v. 12).
And yet we know that God’s manner is to act in the perfect moment; that “there is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven…” as Ecclesiastes 3:1 declares. He is not, as we sometimes surmise, dragging His feet to furnish what His words have caused us to expect. Instead, He is both strategic and precise in the moment He has elected, and gracious to remind us, when the fulfillment is manifested, that His ways were always completely wise, because all “His work is perfect” (Deut. 32:4).
And so, when it is that the ‘revelation lingers,’ we are called not to despair that God will fail to deliver what He has promised, but that – even down to the “transit” and “timing” – He is the One who has never failed to complete what He has begun. For, even in our waiting, we can anticipate fully and with gratitude His completion of what He has vowed; that, ‘with respect to the promise of God,’ we ‘not waver in unbelief but grow strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is able also to perform’ (Romans 4:20-21).
posted by Purple at 8:01 PM
1 comments
