In their hearts, humans plan their course,
— Proverbs 16:9
but the Lord establishes their steps.
God’s timing is better than ours. Commit this truth to your heart! I remind myself of this often, when something I’ve planned does not go my way. I’ll share a couple of very real examples, when I’ve been grateful, in the end, that God’s timing and God’s plan won out over mine.
The most recent example concerns the timing of the nursing contract that I took during the month of December, 2022. I made plans for this contract while I was in Poland for a couple of days, before coming home from my medical mission trip to Ukraine in November. I called the recruiter and requested a December 4th, 2022 start-date. That would give me a week at home to spend some time with my family before leaving for the contract in St. Croix. The recruiter pushed me for a December 1st start-date, telling me that would allow for orientation on Friday, a weekend to rest, and work would start on Monday. I relented.
That nice little scenario of getting to rest over the weekend did not play out. I was pretty upset about it at the time and felt that I’d been duped. That whole contract was trouble from beginning to end—eternally optimistic, I now have the answer to the question, “How do you know when you’re someplace that God doesn’t want you to be?” – but I’ll reserve those details for a (possible) future blog post. Just trust me on this— you’ll know. Things will become fairly miserable, fairly quickly. When I accepted that contract, I contemplated signing up for another 30-day contract for January. It made sense, on paper, financially-speaking. I prayed for guidance. By mid-December, God had made it more than clear that I was not supposed to renew my contract for January.
Contract obligations fulfilled, I booked a flight home for December 30th. My last shift was on Tuesday, December 27th. I was utterly exhausted when I got off work that night, so I failed to see a missed call from my mother’s hospice agency. I returned the call the next day, Wednesday. The nurse informed me that they’d declared my mother as “imminent” again. (They declared her “imminent” a few months before, in September, but that was a false alarm). Not terribly worried at this point, I sent a message out on the family group chat. My sister visited her the next day (Thursday) and told me that mom didn’t look good. My uncle visited her the morning of Friday, December 30th, and when we spoke, as I was sitting on the plane waiting to leave the tarmac, he told me, “She looked dead when I walked into the room.” This statement scared me. Things were serious this time.
Drained, sore, and cranky from hours of being crammed into tiny airplane seats, I felt in my heart that I needed to go see my mom when I got home on Friday night. It was way after any sort of reasonable visiting hours would have ended, but I decided to just go and ask for forgiveness rather than permission. She looked awful when I got there. I swabbed the crust from her lips and mouth and wiped her forehead with a cool, damp cloth. I talked to her, as I always did, explaining where I had been and why I’d been gone so long. Telling her what day it was, what the weather was like outside. Telling her how much I loved her, and how much greater even was her Heavenly Father’s love for her. Her eyes were half-lidded, but blinking. Her breathing was not labored. She bit down on the swab a few times, and once even pursed her lips together as if to speak— but no sound came out. I sat on her bed all the while, and leaned down to wrap her fragile form in my arms, pressing my lips softly to her forehead and her cheeks as I got ready to leave.
I’m forever grateful that I visited her that night, that the Spirit compelled me to put aside my own needs to tend to those of my mother. When I left her, I told her that I would see her in the morning. But by the time I arrived on Saturday, December 31, she was gone. My brother and uncles were at her bedside when she passed— praise the Lord that she was not alone! That was my greatest fear, that she would die alone. Instead, I thank God that He orchestrated things so that she passed peacefully with loved ones at her bedside. Still, I was shocked. I knew she didn’t have long, but I thought we had another day or two with her on this earth.
Eventually, the realization hit me that if I’d stuck to my original plan of beginning my contract on December 4th, I would have missed the chance to say goodbye to my mother. I would never have forgiven myself for that. God, in his great & mysterious mercy, changed the plans I’d made, for my own good. So many circumstances surrounding her death that, to me, are clearly the work of God’s hands— forever a reminder to TRUST HIM, in times of doubt.
Another recent example of God’s timing being better than ours, occurred during my trip to Ukraine. To get to Ukraine, we first went to Warsaw. We had to drive across the border from Poland into Ukraine. Oddly enough, the one night we tried to cross over into Ukraine was the one night when Poland was hit by a stray missile— November 15, 2022. My team was to drive a vehicle that was being kept by the pastor of a church that we partnered with, and we planned to leave around noon. However, part of the vehicle’s paperwork had inadvertently been left behind— so our departure ended up being delayed by a few hours. We made it to the border crossing around 8:00 PM, but we were turned away by a guard who told us that the border was closed.
When we asked why, and for how long, and could we please just wait in line there, he firmly rebuked our questions and brusquely told us, “No, you cannot wait here.” We didn’t find out about the missile until after we checked in to a nearby hotel for the night. Turns out, the missile landed about two hours north of us, a few hours before we got there. If our departure had not been delayed, we would have arrived around the time the missile hit— and who knows what could have happened! Once the gravity of those implications sank in, my annoyance at being turned away faded into relief and gratitude for God’s providence. Eventually, by the grace of God, we made it across the border and we successfully completed our mission of conducting a mobile medical clinic in a rural village (For full details, see “Ukraine – Mobile Medical Clinic” post). Another very real, very “life” example of how God’s timing is superior to ours. Patience, my friend. It’s a fruit of the Spirit!
All that to say— the next time something doesn’t go according to plan, don’t let it ruffle your feathers! Wait. See what happens next. Most likely, something better for you is on the horizon, or you may have avoided some tragedy. I’m still learning this. I like to think that I’m in control. But sometimes God reminds me that I’m not. And I thank Him for it!
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
— Isaiah 55:8-9
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
.:: God's Gravity ::. 