Timing is Everything

Luke 5:1-11

Pastor Melanie Hammond Clark

February 7, 2010

            When I read the different accounts in Scripture of how Jesus called his disciples, I am always amazed at one thing:  how without hesitation they always seem to drop everything and follow him.  All we know from Scripture is that Jesus said “Come” and they did.  What we don’t know is what was going on in their hearts and minds that the writers don’t record.  Were there yearnings, suspicions, doubts, hopes that were jarred loose, or were they grasped firmly by God’s words, God’s presence, such that they felt compelled to say, “Enough. I am a child of God, and I will take the risks to follow”?

            It is hard to tell what gripped them, what made them so responsive.  But in Peter’s case, I would venture to say that timing was everything.

            Peter wasn’t just some little amateur fisherman, out for a break from the routine of things.  Fishing was his routine, it was his career, and he knew it well.  He knew that the best fishing was at night when the water was calm, and he and his fishing crew had just been up all night on the water and had taken in nothing.

            And then here comes Jesus, not a fisherman but a carpenter no less, telling Peter to put out into the deep and let down the nets for a catch.  Peter must’ve been thinking this was a waste of energy, but having heard Jesus preach to the crowds, Peter respected him, was somewhat awestruck by him, and decided to give it a chance.  “Master,” he said, “we toiled all night and took nothing!  But at your word I will let down the nets.”  And when they had done this they enclosed a great shoal of fish to the point where their nets were breaking and they had to ask for help to bring them in.

            Peter was so astonished he didn’t know how to respond but to fall on his knees before Jesus.  But Jesus said, “Hey, don’t be afraid.  From here on out you’ll be catching women and men for me.”

            Jesus caught Peter at an unexpected moment and brought unexpected results.  There right in the midst of his daily work Jesus came.  It wasn’t at some retreat or in the middle of temple worship.  It was in the heart of Peter’s life, where he worked, amidst the mundane rhythm and routine of his life.

            Yet Jesus threw a ringer into that routine.  Because as a good fisherman, Peter assumed that Jesus had his timing all wrong, that there was no way he and his partners had missed fish if they were there.  But Jesus’ timing, though different from what Peter expected, was right on the money.  Even though it flew in the face of all that was common sense, Jesus knew what he was doing.  His timing was everything.

            And in some respects timing is everything.  And what makes the difference in our lives is whose timing we live by.  In reality do we live as the sole masters of our existence or do we trust something, Someone, bigger than ourselves to have an influential hand in our lives?  Now understand, I’m not talking about believing in fate.  Believing in fate means we are merely resigned to our circumstances; life happens to us and we must take the cards that are dealt and assume that’s how things are meant to be.  No, I’m talking about faith, and faith differs from fate in that faith causes us to work with our circumstances, sometimes to accept them, sometimes to change them, but always to entrust them in quiet confidence to God, discerning our response by calling on God’s wisdom and power – even when it flies in the face of what our culture thinks is common sense.

            So what is it that makes us balk at trusting God? If we believe in God, if we say we trust in the wisdom of God, why are we so reluctant to live by God’s timing?

            I’d say there are at least two reasons:  God’s timing is too slow, and God’s timing is too fast.

            First, God’s timing is too slow.  We are an impatient people.  The evidence is all around us from the sound of the horn behind you when the light changes to the irritation you sense in the grocery store lines.  As a people we tend to betray an inability to tolerate frustration – and we hate to wait.

            Why is this?  The fact is that many have grown up in an era and in environments where they did not endure much frustration regarding their wants and desires as children.  In most cultures historically, children learned early that their childish wishes would not be fulfilled, at least not readily, and so they learned what Freud called the capacity for  delayed gratification. 

            But what about a culture where young people experience little or no such early frustration, where they get pretty much what they want when they want it.  What happens when in adult years they begin to run into the frustration of their desires, the impossibility of their demands?

            The reality is that most worthwhile experiences, skill, possessions, achievements, and understanding do not come quickly or easily.  They require a great deal of time and patience for their realization.  Patience is trust in God’s timing, and perseverance in God’s purpose.  In neither case is patience a passive or stoic thing.  It includes persistent struggle until the results do come.

            But we hate struggling and we hate waiting.  Our instant gratification culture has taught us to expect instant results in every part of our lives.  In a matter of minutes coffee and food appear at drive-through windows, we press a few buttons for instant money, create instant relationships on-line, and then can instantly dissolve them, we don’t have to run to a library or a book shelf but can instantly Google just about anything we want to know.  While these are all amazing technological developments, a demand for quick results in all things is a symptom of our time.

            And frankly, what that means is that spiritually our lives may become shallow and empty because a deep and abiding faith is not something we can pick up at the corner Walgreen’s pick-up window or pull up on our computers.  A relationship with God requires commitment and time and quiet and waiting.  It doesn’t appear on command or with a key stroke.  We can get all the information in the world on God, but that doesn’t make for a relationship with God.  (Trust me, I have an i-phone and there is no APP for that!).  God’s timing is too slow for us, because the one thing we are hesitant to give up in our lives is our most precious commodity—time—specifically the time it takes to get to know him.

            Secondly, we are reluctant to live by God’s timing because God is too fast.  Basically, we think God is too slow to deliver what we want from him, but we feel he’s too fast in regard to what he wants from us.  When Jesus says, “Come follow me” we say, “Fine”, until he adds his timing, “now”, and his plan for us, to make us fishers of women and men.  We’re glad to come to Christ when we get to choose the time and, just as important to us, when we can set the conditions that might assure our own spiritual comfort.  But if God wants to in any way rock our boat, we would just as soon jump ship and swim for our lives.

            Let’s face it, while we say we want God to be more real and present in our lives, each of us is a little afraid to invite Jesus into our boat for fear he won’t just come along for the ride; for fear that he might ask us to drop our nets at a time or place that is inconvenient or doesn’t make sense to us.  Each of us wants to wait until we are ready, until we have met some other obligation or finished some other responsibility.  Wait till I finish this project, wait till I’m not as involved in this or that; wait, wait, wait.  We are so unwilling to wait for God’s answers, but we are more than willing to make God wait for us… time and again.

            But we must remember, and remind each other, that time is fleeting, life is fragile, and God’s timing is everything. And God can’t show us where to cast our nets, how to go deep, if we don’t invite him into the boat. It’s as simple and as hard as that. Don’t expect a vision.  Don’t look for an engraved invitation from heaven.  God calls us in very natural ways, working through individuals, circumstances and events – the question of a stranger, the suggestion of a friend, the need of a colleague, a paragraph in a book, an article, a sermon, an inner compulsion, a prayer. 

            If we pay close attention, if we take the time, if we actually invite him to come in, we are likely to find Jesus sitting in our boat next to us when we least expect him, and he may fill our nets with more than we knew to ask for.  Fast or slow, his timing is everything.  Trust that he knows what you don’t.  Trust that while you feel like the expert on your life, he is.  And when he says, “Come”, the time to follow him is NOW.  

            Amen.