In Your Way and in Your Time

Lately a phrase I’ve heard and said while praying has come to mind. It is: “in Your way and in Your time.” Praying those words proclaims my desire to trust in God. What I too often crave and even demand is this: “I want my way, and I want it now.”

This is how I have prayed this phrase: “Lord, I give this situation to You, and I trust You to work it out in Your way and in Your time.”

When I say those words, I give the circumstance back to the Lord. I forfeit once again my compulsion to try to gain control and force an outcome—my desired outcome.

As I write these words, I think of the young woman, Brittany, who took her own life over the weekend because she had brain cancer and wanted control of how she would die. Her decision breaks my heart. I prayed she could have trusted God and called out to Him these words concerning her death: “Let it be in Your way and in Your time.” If only she could have sensed His presence and His love—even in the midst of her tragic diagnosis and prognosis.

Today I am praying this phrase for me will not just be words, but that they will take hold of my heart for all of the situations in my life that bring sadness and tempt me to believe God is doing nothing. What I long for is a heart that rests in peace instead of one that keeps trying to manipulate God into action and acts in ways that are counter to His when it seems He refuses to respond.

I pray that I can more and more have the submissive attitude Jesus did as He prayed: “…not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42 NIV).

A part of me wants to stubbornly hold on to my will. Instead I need to hold on to the Lord and embrace His perfect will—even when it involves suffering and makes no sense.

Two verses come to mind as I think about His way and His time.

One is: “…Love does not demand its own way.” 1 Corinthians 13:5 TLB

If I love God, I will not insist on my way, but submit to His.

The verse that comes to mind when I think of “in His time” is Isaiah 40:31. I like it in the Amplified version of the Bible.

“But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.”

The Lord knows that two battles of my life are submitting to Him and waiting on Him. In the days ahead I will once again add “in Your way and in Your time” to my prayers. I determine anew to hold to the Lord and His promises instead of holding to my way and my time table declaring with my attitude, “God, why won’t You cooperate?”

Even when I don’t know why God does what He does and in the time table He decides, I do know this—that God is good, and He can be trusted.

Will you join me today in trusting Him with every circumstance in our lives? When we do this, He will give us peace in return.

Here is a song that has lifted my spirits this week:

“Holding On To You” by Carrollton.