I was reading in Luke chapter 1 today, and as I am quite an imaginative soul, I got to thinking about how much condemnation Elizabeth must have been under as a barren woman.
Surely people judged her, pointed a finger at her. People being people, I’m sure they assumed she had been cursed by God or had sin in her life because of her inability to conceive a child. In that culture, if you didn’t have children you were considered pretty much worthless. In those days that was a woman’s primary purpose.
She waited so many years and finally gave up on the dream only to learn in her old age that she was going to have a baby. Her womb would be opened by a child who would make way for the King of the world!
She was old. She waited for so long. But finally, God fulfilled the purpose He had for her life. What an honor. And worth waiting for.
And then there’s Mary. A very young maid. God fulfilled the purpose He had for her life when she was young. So very young.
Reading this made me realize it is God who decides the when. For Mary it was around age 13 or 14. For Elizabeth, in her senior years.
As a writer, I need to remember this. For Elizabeth to conceive John at an earlier time would have been the wrong time. The same for Mary.
I am simply one small part of a great big orchestra. I play my part and come in at the right time as God conducts. He sees the big picture. He knows the right timing of a book, an article, even a devotion.
I need to remember this when I’m frustrated that my dreams are being fulfilled at a snail’s pace. Because, it’s not my ability to write that is the means to an end. It’s my ability to obey Him that makes it useful.
We might think that what God has placed in our hearts is impossible just as Mary wondered at what God had put in her without having been with a man. We would do well to remember the words spoken to Mary in Luke 1:37:
“For with God nothing shall be impossible.”
It will happen. But the “when” is all up to Him.
