OUR WORLD TODAY . . . being a good Christian in some bad times

TIMING

It’s all about timing.  Is it?  What is “it” anyway?  It is was and forever shall be God.   And this column is decidedly going to be about God’s timing versus coincidence.

I have often found over the years of being a Christian how humorous it is to hear non-believers discuss coincidence.   “Strange, isn’t it?”  I’ll hear them explain in the story of specific circumstances under specific conditions to where an even more specific result came about.   They look puzzled, and clueless, and yet in their eyes I’ll see a tiny sparkle.  A twinkle in their eyes that shines through the back of their mind down to the very bottom of their soul where a tiny preset built inside of them in some little distant

voice is telling them “uh  no, it’s not strange.  That was not just coincidence.  That right there was God!”  Unfortunately that quiet small sound telling them so can get drowned out easily with the noise of peers, media, fads, caffeine, insecurities, addictions, baggage, ignorance, and denial.   Timing is everything.  Location can be just as important, but ultimately both timing and your whereabouts coupled in God’s hands throws you these fantastic end results that should help you see his love and his grace from his detailed work in your own life.

One of my friends purchased a brand new smart phone the other evening.  Maybe not for her but for me it takes what at least a few weeks to get down the basics of operation for these devices.  The last time I got a new cell phone it took at least 5 incoming calls before I even knew how to answer the thing.  In the old days there was a big green button that would have written upon it Tarzan terms such as “TALK.”  How hard was that to figure out?  Not hard at all!  Phone rings (not beeps, glips, or laughs, or plays some song) – you press umm….. “TALK” button, yeah that works!!!  EASY PEASY!  You don’t have to download the manual online to your personal computer.  You don’t have to figure out which part of the booklet that came with the phone is the English side after flipping it 3 times to find out how to answer your new phone.  I’m blonde so when I get one of those little handbooks that comes with an electronic instrument it may take me 5 minutes alone just to figure out the right side up for English to peruse the book for helpful hints  . . . especially since I don’t read Chineese, French, or too much Spanish.

Anyway . . .my friend, who isn’t hung up on reading manuals like me, went home with her new phone and as she was changing into her pajamas she heard a “Werrrrh eeet Whirrrr!”  A whistle.  You know like the one construction site workers are noted for if you are a woman and you walked past them on their coffee breaks that occur everytime you walk by . . . yeah one of those.  My girlfriend’s eyes widened as she looked all around her bedroom in her home.  “What in the world?”  and she heard it again.

No doubt she got dressed in a hurry and went out to find her son in the other room sending her a text to her new phone to try it out.  Well it works you could say!  That was the whistle.  Her new phone had a whistle sound to alert her to new incoming texts.  Her family got a good laugh about it.   Timing . . . Her new phone, first night to have, with no time to check out it’s features, just happened to be set at a whistle, and only first happened to get a text at the moment she was interchanging personal clothing.  Okay maybe not an example of God with a message but definitely a good example of timing!

I decided to dye my hair one day and I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t going to be green or orange or anything other than the color I picked so I carefully watched the clock to make sure I rinsed out the dye in time.  Everything seemed to keep interrupting my clock watching.  Phone calls, children, my dog, my husband, my fridgerator (longer story), but I was not going to let anything stop me at that appointed time from rinsing my hair until……….I hopped in the shower turned the water on and out came maybe two little baby drops of water.   YIKES!   Long story shortened and over an hour later the reason my water did not come on when I needed it to was because at that very moment a tiny lizard had made his way in between some tiny cozy parts of our well system and he shorted out the system when he became a fried lizard and it flipped the switch to cut off the well pump.

I do not dye my hair often enough that the odds for this timing scenario would be a large pool of possibilities!   Right then, right there, and right me made this combination of my little lesson of trying to control outside obstacles to accomplish even the tiniest  insignificant to humanity tasks complete.

How about the “Goldilocks” subject?  Do you know about that?  Just a couple of days ago there’s huge science news of a couple of planets being possibly earth-like.  Supposedly these newly discovered planets could be similar to ours because they may fit the new criteria for being in a habitable zone or the “Goldilocks zone” which means if we are just a tiny bit either way our planet would either burn up or turn into ice (sorry I’m not being to detailed).  For years and years scientists who did not believe in intelligent design, or God but they still would at least admit that the earth’s position, axis tilt, spinning, core etc . . .all combined made it fit in a extremely narrow area of  huge vast space qualifying the planet for having life.   I mean the numbers are kind of crazy mathmatically speaking.   Something like, a number with 500 zeros tacked onto it.      Okay;  the chances are slim.   Besides we’re not all there!   How can it be earth-like?  We can’t even keep track of ourselves and we are looking for more to keep track of?  I do believe in intelligent design.  I do believe the Earth as well as this universe and all others are unique because God made them that way.   Timing and location remember?   He has both of those things down pat.   I mean it makes having all the hairs on your head numbered seem so  effortless (Matthew 10:30) when you contemplate his creations.

Today you will find more people looking for impossibilities than for the obvious possibilities.   More people are trying to find little green men than God.   It amazes me how outlandish some things are being taught to our children  and yet Christians are interpreted as being the lunatics without evidence.  It’s amazing to me how simple the truth can be and how hard others try to avoid it.   I think the newest theory is  . . . “let’s overcomplicate everything so none of those ignorant people can figure out that we are just guessing all the time!”   That’s what science is  . . . making a calculated or non-calculated guess/hypothesis/statement/gamble.

Lucky for a lot of us we’re don’t have to be bogged down with the drama of who, what, when, where, or why.   It’s God.  And we just feel it deep down in the very bottom depths of our souls.   God is very awesome and his holy spirit is too.  It’s in me and it’s in you.   It is everywhere and all throughout space just like dark matter-keeping everything where he wants it to be at the time he wants it to be.   No Goldilocks story necessary.

I dyed my hair again yesterday but with much greater ease.   Water worked just fine when it was supposed to . . . I would hypothesize that God  had other plans for lizards yesterday and it didn’t involve the electrical parts of my well pump!