Tag: God

The Time Giver

by Nicky Wood

Ecc. 3:1: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

Ecc. 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time…”

Time can either be your friend or your enemy – which one will be determined by the way you treat it…

If you are impatient and you lose your temper with it, time will be your enemy. If you embrace it and learn the art of waiting, it can be your friend. If you know when the right time is for the right action and activity, you can learn to use it in your favour… and what better way to know than asking the One who made it?

He who made the seasons is never in a hurry, yet He is always on time! The faithfulness of God is manifested in our lives if we are willing to wait on His timing. If we take matters into our own hands because of our impatience, we may miss the opportunity of seeing God come through for us and prove His faithfulness.

Moses was tending sheep in the desert for 40 years before God appeared to Him in a burning bush and his life changed in an instant. He must have known how he was destined for greater things but he was stuck in a boring job waiting for God to act.

Abraham laughed when God told him that he would have a son because he couldn’t believe that at his age (100) and that of his wife (90) it would be possible (Genesis 17:17).

I guess nobody could have blamed him or Sarah for thinking that it’s all a joke on the one hand, but on the other hand, Abraham was well aware that the God he served was and is a miracle working Father and nothing is too hard for him. He should also perhaps have known that his finite human mind couldn’t possibly comprehend what God can do with the time He gives to each of us. Be it a few years or a few seconds. Even if we think time is running out for us, the final word goes to the One who holds it in His hands.

Sometimes we lose our hope and joy if God does not act within our timetable. Yet this brings us back to the example of the Potter and the clay… Isaiah 45:9 (NLT): “What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker?” In the same way shall we ask the One who made time why He doesn’t act when we think with our limited capacity, that the right time has come?

Can I encourage you to be willing to wait in a society that believes in instant gratification? A prayer that hasn’t been answered might just mean that it is not the right time for it yet to come to pass. Don’t give up hope.

Set your mind on things above, and He will come through for you at just the right time. Moreover, Ecclesiastes tells us that He has made everything beautiful in its time. Not only does He arrange everything for our good (Rom 8:28) but he makes it all beautiful.

Great Expectations

by Nicky Wood

Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

What is your vision for the rest of your life? And how has it been influenced by unmet expectations?

We’ve all been hurt by unmet expectations. Every day when we wake up, whether we admit it or not, we have expectations of the people we love the most. Yet people will always disappoint you in some way or another… our humanity makes us fallible.

We can perhaps still comprehend it to a degree when other people fail us even though we might be heartbroken.

But what of the expectations we have of God?

How does it influence our prayer life, our vision and our purpose when some of our earnest prayers have not been answered and it feels like God is not listening to us, or some unexpected tragedy strikes? Will we admit to ourselves (and to God) that we are disappointed and discouraged?

God knows all about you. He knows what your next prayer will be. He knows what your next sin will be. He knows you completely and still He loves you infinitely. Even though you might be angry and disillusioned, He is not angry or disillusioned by you.

The worst thing you can do is to withdraw from Him because that which you have expected from Him has not materialized. I want to elaborate on this concept in my next few posts because I want you to find out more about who He is and what He wants to do in your life through His faithfulness.

I truly believe that when we have a revelation of His faithfulness and when we pray knowing who He is and what He is capable of doing, when we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we will see mountains being moved. When we pray within the will of God, for the glory of God and not ourselves, and in a trusting manner, we will start to see the manifestation of our prayers. When we keep record of all He has done in the past for us and meditate on this, our future prayers can become even more powerful.

Jeremiah 29:11-13: ““I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.””

You can count on His promises for your future. He never changes and He never fails…Numbers 23:19: “God is not a human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”

I pray that you won’t fall into the trap of letting your vision die because of past disappointments and unmet expectations.

Paradise lost

by Nicky Wood

If God is faithful, why does He allow all the pain and suffering that is consuming this world?

A valid question – to find a glimpse of the answer, will take you back to the beginning of Creation.

In the beginning, man was literally made for paradise. A perfect world. A perfect plan and a perfect creation. No hate, no pain, no disaster or famine or hunger or war. This was God’s plan for you and me.

God made us from love, because He is love, and love was made alive when Adam and Eve walked the earth, so God could manifest His love to them personally. The earth was created for us, out of His eternal love. But love is not just one dimensional, and in God’s omnipotent plan, he desired a relational love – he desired Adam’s love in return.

Yet love can never be forced or required or expected, so the only way to complete the picture was for God to give man a free will. A choice to love or not. If I didn’t have a choice, if I was forced to love you, it would and could never be called love at all.

Eve made the wrong choice. Chose the wrong tree. In an instant Satan received power over this world because of her choice. And forever man would have to choose between good and evil. Whether you choose to believe in God or not does not take away from this Truth. The reality that Adam and Eve were banished from paradise and paradise turned into the hard reality of life on earth as it is now. Our enemy was given control of this world. And the choices people make are not all godly.

So God gave us an opportunity to choose again. We can have paradise again. God decided that it’s not the end. After life on earth man can spend an eternity in Heaven with Him and no man will ever be able to change that because of the one thing that the One man, Jesus, did on the cross.

My intentions are not to oversimplify all the problems of this world, and I know that not everything is a matter of choices. As I mentioned in my first post – time and chance happens to all.

Yet the key here is this:

Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Whatever happens to you in this world, if you love Him, God will work everything out for the good.

That includes all things that might seem wrong or a mess to you or the things in your life that are there because of your own mistakes or weaknesses. God is able to work all of it out for your good. That is how much He loves you.

God’s heart is for you to know the extent of His love for you, the extent of a love and faithfulness that knows no end. That has no boundaries and that can never be extinguished or diminished. A love that is more than likely impossible for a human mind to comprehend in its life time.

He is a God that is faithful, even if we are faithless. (2 Timothy 2:13)