My Time In God’s Hands

I’M SO TIME CONSCIOUS! I check my watch regularly, carry a cute planner in my purse, enter dates on my phone’s calendar app, and place calendars throughout our home. I write lists for today, tomorrow, and next week. I commit each day to the Lord, but remaining flexible is a challenge. My daughter Christy reminds me to write my plans in pencil—because plans are subject to change.

I plan because I want my time to count, and you do too. Even if you don’t make lists, you have goals and priorities—and that’s a good thing. Scripture urges us to use our time on earth well: Paul encouraged the Ephesians to be wise and make the most of their time (see Ephesians 5:15-16). And in Psalm 90, Moses reminds us to seek God’s help to “number our days”—to recognize how short our lives really are—and present to Him a heart of wisdom (see Psalm 90:12).

I’m grateful the Lord invites people like me, who get sidetracked with our own plans, to come to Him for daily wisdom. He promises to give it to us generously. God has the best plans, but I’m not privy to them unless I come to Him. Coming to Him throughout the day is the best use of my time.

God’s plans overruled mine when I sent my friend Joanie a birthday card a few years ago. One day she called me in tears to tell me that although my card was postmarked 9-27-17, she had received it a year and a half later, on 5-2-19. My note included a message of hope that she desperately needed the day the card arrived. God’s plan, not mine!

I was busy making plans two years ago when the Lord interrupted them. For nearly a year, I periodically blacked out without warning. Twice I blacked out in the shower. The first time, I hit the back of my head, and although I was left with a huge bump, my hair covered the evidence. The next time, however, I fell on my face and looked as if I had been in a fight and lost. Not even sunglasses could hide the conspicuous effects of the fall. My vanity hurt as much as my black eyes.

When it became harder to climb stairs and walk through airports, I decided it was time to seek medical attention. My close friend and internist prays for wisdom about her patients. She talked to the Lord about my health and discerned that I had a heart issue. Since the results of my heart tests were near perfect, no cardiologist believed that was possible. But my friend persisted, and a recorder was placed under my skin to take pictures of my heart when I blacked out.

As I traveled to my next speaking event, I prayed, “When I black out, Lord, please don’t let me be injured again.” That evening I blacked out and fell into a pile of clothes I was unpacking in the hotel. I spoke the next day and then flew home. Monday morning I called to find out about the recorder results. No one had checked. Just minutes later, after doctors looked at the pictures, I was scheduled for emergency surgery the next day.

In God’s timing, my husband was on his thirty-hour trip home from the Philippines. He was with me when I woke up with my new pacemaker, which monitors my heart’s electrical system. Just in time! My heart had been stopping, and only God’s grace started it again. I’m reminded that “God is greater than our hearts and knows all things” (1 John 3:20).

As I dealt with this life-and-death issue, “a time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2, NKJV) became more of a reality. I began to grasp that my time on earth has limits. If we know Jesus as our Savior, we will live forever with Him, but our time here will end one day. We know the date of our birthdays, but only God knows the day of our funeral. In between birth and death, we can aspire to make our time count. We can prepare now for eternity. An eternal perspective motivates us to share Christ with an unsaved friend, tell family and friends how much we love them, invest in causes with eternal values, settle accounts, and write that note or make that call.

Through it all, we trust God’s plans for us. “As for me, I trust in You, O LORD, I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:14-15).

REFLECTION

As you make plans today, reread Psalm 31:14-15 and remind yourself that God is ultimately in control. Release your plans to Him, and ask for the grace to use your remaining time well, for His glory.