Trusting God when His timing doesn’t make sense is not the easiest thing to do.
I was reading Psalm 28:7 recently, where David says, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.”
Something about that picture of God as our shield took me back to when Caryn and I were dating.
We had only been together for a few months, and things were going really well. Then suddenly, Caryn felt like the Lord was telling her to pause the relationship. She didn’t know why. I didn’t know why. She just knew she needed to obey what God was asking her to do.
I remember talking through it and trying to understand what was happening. Deep down, I think part of me was hoping I could say something that would change her mind. Finally, Caryn looked at me and said, “All I can say is Jesus.”
It was almost like Jesus Himself stepped between the two of us like a shield, and I knew there was nothing I could do except wait and trust Him with whatever came next.
Maybe you know that feeling. You’re waiting for an answer to prayer, waiting for a door to open, or waiting for something in a relationship to change. Sometimes the hardest part is not believing God can do something. It’s trusting Him when He hasn’t done it yet.
Obviously, Caryn and I did get back together. We’ve now been married for 12 years, and five of those years we’ve spent here at KCBI together. I could not have seen any of that in the moment when she was standing in front of me saying, “Jesus.”
My timing was not God’s timing, but looking back, He has proven over and over that He was trustworthy in the waiting.
Psalm 28:7 says He is our strength and our shield. I think sometimes that shield looks like protection from something we don’t understand yet. Sometimes it looks like a delay. Sometimes it looks like waiting longer than we want to.
But He is still helping us, even when His timing does not make sense.