Timing

I've been reading the Old Testament.  I calculate that I'm about 20 percent through it.  It's a pretty tough slog through Leviticus and Numbers.  That latter book is well-named.  There are a lot of statistics in it.  I was thinking in parts how nice it would be if there could just be a summary chapter about all the places Israel went and what they did there.

And there is!  Numbers Chapter 33.  Israel left Egypt, then went here, then there, then this other place.  It was a nice summary, but got me thinking.  That's a lot of places, and they went all those places over a lot of years.  Israel may have thought that blessings would come quickly.  But the real promise came only after decades of wandering in the wilderness.  And the poor children of that first generation--their parents disobeyed, and so the children had to suffer for it as well.

And so it is in life.  The Lord's timetable is often frustrating different than our own.  Our lesson in Elders' Quorum on Sunday was on based on this talk from Elder Dallin H. Oaks from 2002.

The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith means trust--trust in God's will, trust in His way of doing things, and trust in His timetable. We should not try to impose our timetable on His. 

As Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said: The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best? The same is true with the second coming and with all those matters wherein our faith needs to include faith in the Lord's timing for us personally, not just in His overall plans and purposes. [Even As I Am (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), 93] 

More recently, during last April conference, Elder Maxwell said: "Since faith in the timing of the Lord may be tried, let us learn to say not only, 'Thy will be done,' but patiently also, 'Thy timing be done'" (CR, April 2001, 76; or "Plow in Hope," Ensign, May 2001, 59).

Extra frustrating is when out timetable looks all together, and then it changes because of the choices or actions of others.  Divorce is a good example.

Yet, "My words are sure and shall not fail," the Lord taught the early elders of this dispensation. "But," He continued, "all things must come to pass in their time" (D&C 64:31­32).