God's Time/Timing
“At times we may become so consumed and focused on our own problems and worries that we forget that God is there. We also may feel that God gets impatient or frustrated with our setbacks or slow progress.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“God's timeline is never the same as ours, He works to bring about His purposes.” (Gordon T. Smith)
“God the Eternal is above the categories of time and space. Therefore, we cannot measure God’s ways by our human calendar. As the apostle says, “With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Therefore, we cannot apply the words “slack,” “delay,” “slowness,” or “tardiness” to the actions of God in human history…The Lord acts in his own time. And He does not hurry. We do not know when He will fulfill His final promise. But we do know why it has not yet occurred. According to Peter, the Almighty is patient and longsuffering (vs. 9)… He does not desire that anyone should perish. But He is waiting for all to come to repentance (vs. 9).” (Fr. Basil)
“The self-help gurus are wrong: time is not manageable. When in the midst of pleasure, there is too little; when in pain, there is too much. Since time is elusive to define or manage, we measure it by events that happen within it. A professional athlete measures time between games; a computer company measures time between product releases; a cancer patient measures time between treatments. Some of us feel as if we measure time between problems, knowing that that is no way to live but not sure what to do about it. At the very least, we know that human beings measure time around something…As human beings bound by time, there is a temptation to live in regret over a past we cannot change or in fear over a future we cannot predict. The Christian writer C.S. Lewis says this temptation is a devilish trap. In fact, in his book The Screwtape Letters, Lewis has a devil speak that very thing: "Our business," writes the devil Screwtape, "is to get [humans] away from the eternal and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past...[i]t is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear.” (Fr. John Oliver)
“Unless God’s will is viewed on the two planes of His desiderative and decretive will (what He desires and what He decrees), hopeless confusion will result. The scriptures amply illustrate both that God sometimes decrees things that He does not desire and desires things that He does not decree. It is not that His will can be thwarted, nor that He has limited his sovereignty. But the mystery of God’s dealings with humanity is best seen if this tension is preserved. Otherwise, either God will be perceived as good but impotent or as a sovereign taskmaster. Here the idea that God does not wish for any to perish speaks only of God’s desiderative will, without comment on His decretive will.” (NET Bible, 2 Peter 3:9)
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