I was chatting to one of my mates from England last night, and we got onto the topic (as girls tend to do) of relationships!! As Christians we put a lot of emphasis on "who" God has for us to marry, and forget about the "when". I know everyone has come across at least one smugly married person who has quoted that wonderful line "At the right time your paths will cross...." and most of the time we smile through gritted teeth. But actually there is a lot of truth in that. And I say that from a very single position! How many times have we said (or thought secretly) "If I just knew who it will be it would be so much easier to wait"? But surely if we knew who, it would be so much harder to wait. If we knew who, then, I think, we would probably think we knew when too! We would want to skip the journey of friends-courting-engaged-married, and just cut straight to the chase. And we would lose out on so much by doing that. There's a reason God doesn't hand us a piece of paper at birth with details of husband/wife, number of children, grandchildren, job spec, etc. God is not just about the destination, but about the journey. He wants to travel with us, step by step. I often use The Celtic Daily Prayer Book, and this gets me every time I read it:
As the rain hides the stars,
as the autumn mist hides the hills,
happenings of my lot
hide the shining of Thy face from me.
Yet, if I may hold Thy hand
in the darkness,
it is enough;
since I know that,
though I may stumble in my going,
Thou dost not fall.
Alistair Maclean
One thing my wise housemate often says is that when we are in God's will, things just fall into place. We don't need to force anything. And I have definitely found that out. When I take things into my own hands and try and make things happen, they just don't work. I need to learn to be content to wait on God, because he is not just about the who, but also about the when. Timing is everything...