Monday Morning Devotion-March 11, 2019
A Set Time
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
When Mark Batterson and his wife started National Community Church in Washington, D. C. in 1996 they had 19 members. In five years they had grown to 250 people. Then a religion reporter from the Washington Post asked for an interview because she was intrigued by the church demographics. She said the article would be about how they were reaching emerging generations and the article would appear in the religion section.
On Sunday Batterson stopped by a news rack and quickly flipped through the two-inch-thick Sunday edition to the religious section. Not finding the article there he disappointedly placed the paper back in the rack thinking the article didn't meet the editor's approval.
As he was putting the newspaper back that is when he discovered the article was on the front page of the paper. Batterson says: "That was the day God put National Community Church (NCC) on the map."
It had taken five years to grow to 250 people. In the next year, after the article came out, they doubled in size. Batterson says that God had an appointed time for all this to happen. He concludes it was: "God's time. It was God's favor. It was God's word. And God was watching over it."
By 2015, NCC had grown to eight locations, was averaging around 3,500 in weekly attendance, swelling to 5,000 for Easter Sunday services and had $10,893,000 in annual giving.
God had a set time for that article to come out that included mega-growth in the future.
Joel Osteen, pastor of the Lakewood church in Houston that has grown from originally meeting in a feed store to a current average weekly church attendance of 52,000, says that God has set times for when things will happen in your future.
In his book "The Power of I Am" Osteen writes: "In life we're always waiting for something---waiting for a dream to come to pass, waiting to meet the right person, waiting for a problem to turn around. When it's not happening as fast as we would like, it's easy to get frustrated. But, you have to realize that the moment you prayed, God established a set time to bring the promise to pass…. It may be tomorrow, or next week, or five years from now."
Osteen says: "Here is where it takes faith. God promises that there are set times in our future, but he doesn't tell us when they will be…My question is: 'Do you trust God enough to believe that your set times are coming? Are you willing to wait with a good attitude, knowing that they're on the way?"
"Don't let the negative thoughts talk you out of it. There is a set time for you. It is already in your future. Now quit worrying about it. Quit living stressed out, thinking."
Paul writes in Romans 12:12: "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."
As Osteen said at that moment when you pray God is already establishing a set time for that prayer to be answered.
That's why Batterson informs us that: "God Honors Bold Prayers and Bold Prayers Honor God." There is nothing that is too big, nor is His schedule too crowded for him to answer our prayers.
It's very comforting that no problem is too big for God. So we can offer up big, multi-faceted, complex prayers if we are capable of doing that. God can handle them but the first thing we have to try to discern is if we are praying within his will. They won't be too complicated for him but are they too difficult for us to have an understanding of what happens when the prayer is answered?
But, the really cool thing is that no problem or request is too small for God to help us with when we pray within His will.
When God appeared to Abraham and Sarah in their old age and told them they would have a son they were surprised. Since Sarah was well past the child-bearing age it was hard for them to believe this. Genesis 18:14 points out the logic that should override their doubts.
"Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son."
Notice this is not some vague promise. It says that there is already an appointed time for this birth to happen. And reading in Genesis 21 1:2. "Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time God had promised him"
Sometimes we just have to take that first step before God will reveal to us the time he has set for what we were praying to happen.
God had lead the Israelites to the Jordan River. On the other side was the Promised Land. At flood tide the Jordan River is about a mile-wide at the point where they were standing. That's all that separated them from their 400-year old promise. There dream was only about a stone's throw away.
But, God had still had one thing for them to do. "When you reach the banks of the Jordan River, take a few steps into the river." That's the only thing they had to do for God's promise to be set in motion.
A mile of muddy water could look very challenging. With such a large group of people there was probably a lot of fear that they would all be swept away in that fast-moving water. That could have made them unwilling to take that step of faith.
When the priests did as they were instructed…sure they got their feet wet…but the waters parted, and the Israelites walked across into the Promised Land.
When you pray, God will set the time for your prayer to be answered. Stay alert for any instructions He might have. You might have to get your feet wet first, then you can have a clear path and will know the answer.
As Batterson says: "If you make a move, you'll see God move. And He can move heaven and earth.
Prayer: Our Father help us stay in touch with the plans you have and the things you ask us to do as we move forward, in faith, to the time and place you have set for us. Amen!
Thanks to Mark Batterson's "The Circle Maker" and Joel Osteen's "The Power of I Am" for the inspiration to craft this devotion.