Theodore Roosevelt once said, “When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”  If you’ve ever prayed for something and God appears unconcerned or absent, you’re in good company.  Well, not good company because His faith-full children know that life is all about His timing, not theirs.

In the Zoom Bible study I attend, last week we discussed God’s timing by listening to a sermon by Pastor Craig Groeschel.  He addressed three reasons why God was silent for 400 years between the writings of the Old and New Testaments.

(1).  Learning was no longer done by a teacher speaking while students remained silent; rather, the Socratic method was introduced whereby students were allowed to participate and question.

(2). Rome developed roads and travel flourished.

(3).  Alexander the Great conquered the world and Jewish people spread out.

According to Groeschel, all of that needed to happen to prepare for Jesus’ coming.  God’s timing is perfect, even though it might not seem that way if we spend weeks/months/years praying for something and are hanging onto that knotted rope.

My son, Adam, recently recovered two Haitian orphans, a seven-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, and delivered them to their adoptive, Canadian parents who met them at the airport in Miami, Florida.  His safety and theirs depended on God’s timing.

A year ago, Adam’s sex-trafficking team rescued a missionary family in Haiti and returned them to the U.S.  That family was contacted by two Canadian couples who had spent five years trying to adopt two Haitian orphans, and now that the papers were signed, it was too dangerous for the kids to get out of Port Au Prince.  Did they know anyone who could help?  The missionaries put them in contact with Adam.  This time our son went alone.

A colleague Adam had met in Ukraine knew a helicopter pilot in Haiti who could help in the rescue. When travel to the U.S. was postponed (Flights to Port Au Prince had been suspended by all airlines due to violence in the country), an acquaintance of Adam’s knew a pastor who hid them until they could leave. Had Adam not met these people (God’s timing), this could have had a very different outcome.

Adam knew that God had orchestrated this rescue, so when he was grilled for hours at the Embassy, he did not fret.  After all, here was a white, tattooed, bearded male, attempting to leave Haiti with two young black children, and even though he had all the legal paperwork, he looked suspicious. At the airport and on the plane, he felt the looks and heard the murmurs.  (I’m sure I would have been one of those judging, except I, in my dramatic flair, probably would have made a scene and had him arrested.)

Psalm 18:30 (NIV) is a verse worth memorizing: As for God, His way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him.                                                                

Adam will attest to that.