An appointed time of favor

Talking about times and seasons, we of course know that God does not follow our own calendar. But has it struck you how time is so unique. Men had to devise methods to ensure that they observe certain important social or religious activities. 

God ordained seasons and times. Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3 says that to everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven. It was God who commissioned time before even there was a beginning! I have this favorite mantra which I share a lot with people: "God is not waiting for tomorrow, tomorrow is actually waiting for God to usher it in". God is outside the boundaries of time!

Doesn't it tempt you to think that God may be having His own calendar which He uses to mark important heavenly activities. He is the ruler of Heaven and also rules in the affairs of men. But of course His calendar is special and divine and not that He needed it to function as God!

In His calendar, has He marked appointed times to perform certain things? Before you write me off as being over board, see what God told Abraham and Sarah:

Is anything too hard or too wonderful for the Lord? At the appointed time, when the season [for her delivery] comes around, I will return to you and Sarah shall have borne a son. (Genesis 18:14, Amplified)

Just to elaborate, God was able to cause the desire of Abraham to be fulfilled immediately. Didn't you listen to the first part, "there is nothing too hard or too wonderful for the Lord"? Yet He talks of an appointed time when Sarah will bore a son. There is the fulfillment of an action but at a set time that God had determined in sovereignty. 

Even the coming of Christ was timed and orchestrated by God to be in a specific favorable time. God had an agenda to bring salvation to mankind. But He did not do it during Isaiah's time or Daniel's time. But the plan was there, the place where the birth of Christ was to be, was also known in advance, only waiting for the fullness of time.

But when the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born subject to [the regulations of] the Law, (Galatians 4:4, Amplified )

Is these therefore sufficient evidence that God has great and good plans for us but we have to wait until an appointed time for their fulfillment? I strongly believe so, and even more specifically hold the belief that God has appointed times to show favor!

Favor at an appointed time? Yes. Just look at this scripture,

You will arise and have mercy on Zion; For the time to favor her, Yes, the set time, has come. (Psalms 102:13, NKJV)

It doesn't mean that God was incapable of showing mercy to Jerusalem, only the set time ( a time of favor) had not yet come. It is so with your life. God is a God of divine order. He has certain things He will accomplish in your  life when the proper time comes. In that specific season, its the favorable time or a time of favor. Hallelujah.

In Isaiah 49:8 the Lord says, 

"In an acceptable and favorable time I have heard and answered you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you; and I will preserve you and give you for a covenant to the people, to raise up and establish the land [from its present state of ruin] and to apportion and cause them to inherit the desolate [moral wastes of heathenism, their] heritages,

The question by now may have shifted from, "will He do it?" to "when?". We must understand the importance of time in God's calendar. He alone is wise in determining the most appropriate time for every purpose He has in our lives. Our position is that of surrender and waiting on Him. Waiting in the sense of having an attitude of joy and thanks giving knowing its only a matter of time but it shall be done. Most of us believers do not struggle with the question of "can He do it?" but we are often stressed by the question of "when will He do it?" because if we were consulted we would wish it was done right now. 

God's calendar has the right time, the fullness of time, the proper time, a time of favor! And it is not for you to know when, but we can trust in His unfailing steadfast love. Jesus Christ just before departing to the Father said to His disciples,

It is not for you to become acquainted with and know what time brings [the things and events of time and their definite periods] or fixed years and seasons (their critical niche in time), which the Father has appointed (fixed and reserved) by His own choice and authority and personal power.
(Acts 1:7, Amplified)

There is a season appointed that God will show you favor. 

And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint. (Galatians 6:9, Amplified)

Shalom.

Where is God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, "Where is your God?" (Psalms 42:3, NKJV)

Have you ever been at that point in your life where this question, “Where is your God?”, hang around your life like that dark cloud that neither pours rain nor drifts away in the wind. It’s just there. By now I know I am asking a rhetoric question with an obvious answer. Mark you, the question is different from “Where is my God?” The former is inspired by external factors while the latter is fueled from within self. For this blog post’s purpose, I wish to dwell on the question that is often asked by people and even circumstances that are opposed to our progress as Christians. They ask “where is your God?”

Even when you do not doubt for once that the good LORD is there continually with you acting on your behalf behind the scenes, there will often appear persons who will question it all: is He really with you? Even difficult situations will arise that silently ask you, “where is your God?”

David in psalms 42 was in such a state. His tears wetting his pillow in the night because his enemies were continually saying to him, “Where is your God?” He explains it further in versus 10, how it felt like;

As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?" (Psalms 42:10, RSV)

It’s a terrible feeling this question can bring in your life. This question potentially can afflict your soul, bring anxious uneasiness or grief. Reading through the whole psalm 42 shows you that David was so aware of the goodness of God and His ability to help Him. Only this question had wearied his soul?

Sometimes the people asking this question do so by purely observing the occurrences in our lives. They see you weighed down by a disease, they see you lose that job, they see you remain in that same place for a long time, nothing is changing and they ask, “Where is your God?” They see your father or mother or child die because of cancer or that other disease, they look around and you are still not marrying and there are no signs for it, and they repeat the same question like a hymn stanza. And almost this questions win you over to be doubtful!

At a time when Israel had been brought very low (going to captivity and suffering much in the sight of the heathen nations), a psalm by Asaph was written and in Psalms 79:10, he says;

Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let there be known among the nations in our sight the avenging of the blood of your servants which has been shed. (NKJV)

Similarly in Psalms 115:2,

Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" (RSV)

Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, Weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and do not give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'" (Joel 2:17, NKJV)

Yet still even when the people ask or when those difficult circumstances conspire together to say, “Where is your God?”, still we know,

But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. (Psalms 115:3, NKJV)

For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27, NKJV)