God’s Timetable Not Ours: Not Everything That God Does Takes A Long Time
God’s timetable is not ours, because He is timeless: He looks down on every war, every battle, and every engagement at once, while we watch one train at a time. Scripture holds both patterns — Abraham waiting decades for Isaac and Joseph thirteen years in a dungeon on one side, and the Red Sea splitting overnight, Jericho’s walls falling with a shout, and Pentecost arriving in a whoosh on the other. When God’s moment comes, He arrives swiftly, and the movement is undeniable: circumstances, mathematics, and timing all carrying His handprint. Until then, keep your eyes on the prize and your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel — when Jesus takes the wheel, let Him drive.
Yes it may seem that everything we pray for, even if ultimately, it comes to pass in God’s sweet time. In other words – according to His timetable. Not ours. See? This is easy for God because He is timeless. It is a creation or an illusion that he created our brains in such a way as to perceive but He sees all the wars, all the battles in a single war and every engagement between two opposing soldiers, as an example, at the same moment looking down from above. He doesn’t walk around the extensive elaborate train set to take it all in. He looks down on all the tables that it is on an looks in on every square inch at once. So, of course, His thoughts, His ways and His timing are different from ours. Let’s look at what Jesus said about when He would return as the perfect example. He said that He would come swiftly. That doesn’t mean He is 2000 years late it means that when His time to return comes He will arrive swiftly (“like a thief in the night”) and at a time that only the Father knows (as per ancient wedding ceremonies in Nazareth and Galilee and elsewhere where the Jews followed their customs and traditions).
Now ask Abraham – the father of faith and he will tell you how long that he and Sarah had to wait for Isaac. The Jews had to endure slavery in Egypt for 400 years. Ask Noah how long he had to work on it with primitive tools to build a boat that was not a yacht and where the curvature of the wood itself was next to impossible. And how about Joseph? The one who is famous for being said that which man (his brothers) meant for evil, God used for good had to be, above all things, patient. He had to wait 13 years as a falsely accused prisoner before suddenly things changed for him. Not only was his accusation false but he was accused by one who wanted him to sin but he was too righteous and so he ended up in jail for 13 years. He spent 20 years separated from his family before his dream would be fulfilled. Ultimately God worked all things out for Joseph’s good and he never lost faith.
Now let’s survey quickly some things in the Bible where God move swiftly and in a timely fashion.
- Red Sea – split the sea immediately after one night of fierce winds.
- Babel’s languages – instantly confused everyone as they were speaking different languages so as to thwart their plans of becoming like God
- Jericho’s walls – yes 7 days they marched around the city but then on the 7th day they marched around it 7 times and with a shout the walls came a-tumblin’ down.
- Joseph – yes but you said…. yes all true, but… moved from dungeon to second in command in a single night.
- Jesus’s healings of blind, deaf, lame and lepers – instant.
- Pentecost – the Holy Spirit in a whoosh! arrives.
- The transformation of Saul to Paul on the road to Damascus – in a sudden blinding flash of light after briefly discussing the matter with Jesus.
- Philippi prison earthquake – Paul and Silas freed as their chains came off. Keep your eyes on the prize!
So what about you? Where has God moved in your life. When God moves in your life it will be an undeniable presence where the circumstances, the mathematics, the timing, all of it will clearly have God’s hand manifestly moving and driving. When Jesus takes the wheel just let Him drive.
As for me, my recent test and transformation was decades in coming but was so sudden in some ways for me and certainly for some in my church that they could not believe it until they saw it and then they had to confess that they still had some unbelief they needed help with. And I am privileged blessed and honored to have had the opportunity to help him on his journey with Jesus which is already remarkable.
Classic Commentaries Corner
Charles Spurgeon taught his congregation that God’s delays are never denials. Waiting on the Lord, he said, is not wasted time but the workshop where faith is carved — the believer who stands longest at the window sees the king come home. Spurgeon loved to point out that the same God who made Israel wait also parted the sea in a night: patience and suddenness are the two hands of the same Providence.
Matthew Henry, surveying Joseph’s life, watched Providence conduct the young dreamer through pit, palace, and prison — every step of the thirteen years preparing him for the throne. Henry notes that the butler forgot Joseph for two full years, but God did not: the delay was not neglect but timing, so that the exaltation would land exactly when it would do the most good.
John Calvin, preaching on Isaiah 55, fixes the lesson where Zeb fixes it: God’s thoughts tower above ours as the heavens above the earth. Our impatience, he says, is the comedy of measuring eternity with a pocket watch — the creature demanding that the Creator sync to our clock rather than learning to read His.
Augustine, reflecting on Peter’s words that the Lord is not slow, calls God’s slowness love’s patience: He delays judgment so that the harvest of repentance gets in. The One who is timeless can afford to wait; the wait itself is how He gathers whomsoevers who would never have come at all.
Corroborating Scripture & Christological Connections
Isaiah 55:8-9 — “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.” The charter verse for God’s timetable: same God, different clock, higher vantage.
2 Peter 3:8 — “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Eternity does not move fast or slow; it moves exactly on time.
Habakkuk 2:3 — “The vision awaits an appointed time… though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” The prophet’s answer to the impatient: God’s delays are appointments, not postponements.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 — “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Swift, unannounced, and at an hour only the Father knows — exactly the wedding-ceremony pattern Zeb describes.
John 11:6 — “So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” The deliberate delay of Jesus — long enough for the tomb to be four days dead, so that when He moved, no one could deny the mathematics.
Acts 1:7 — “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” The risen Christ Himself confirming the timetable belongs to the Father alone.
Ephesians 6:15 — “…and your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” The armor’s answer to God’s timing: we do not control the schedule, but we can be standing ready for it — and swift feet serve a swift King.
Essential Takeaways
- Timeless, Not Slow: God’s timetable is not ours because He is timeless — He sees every table, every square inch, every engagement at once.
- The Waits Were Real: Isaac, Egypt’s 400 years, Jericho’s seven days, Joseph’s thirteen — none of the waiting was wasted; the waiting was the making.
- Swift When the Moment Comes: Red Sea overnight, dungeon-to-palace in a night, Damascus in a flash, Pentecost in a whoosh — He is never a day late.
- Ready Feet, Open Hands: When God moves, the circumstances and the mathematics will be undeniable — so let Jesus take the wheel, and keep your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel.
Prayer For Whomsoevers
Lord please equip us with the patience to honor and appreciate Your thoughts, actions and Your timetable when things feel to me like they are taking an insufferably long time to come about. By this, faith is cured like a vintage wine. Also Lord please equip with the readiness that comes from keeping “…and your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” as Paul says in Eph 6:15. Surely any of us might be called upon at any time and we will be ready only if we are standing ready in the Gospel. I pray we will all be ready. In the name of Jesus we say Amen.
