Have you ever had a moment where the anticipation did not match the reality of the experience?
Continuing in our conversation about timing (if you missed last week, I encourage you to go back and read “Right On Time” when you get a chance), I noticed something in scripture yesterday that I’ve been itching to share with you.
In 1 Kings chapter 6, we read about the construction of the temple. This is a really big deal – for the first time, there will be a permanent place set up for the people of God to worship, a steady home for the Ark of the Covenant. Up until this point, the Israelites were still doing set up/tear down church.
Furthermore, the construction of the temple had been a topic of discussion for years before it actually happened. King David wanted to give the Lord a dwelling place, but God told him it would be his son that actually accomplished it. So there is a lot of anticipation leading up to this moment in scripture.
When it comes to the timing of God, we just don’t get it.
And we likely never will.
Have you ever had a moment where the buildup did not match the experience? This is what I felt when I finally got 1 Kings 6. After all of the anticipation, I was expecting verse upon verse, detail upon detail about the construction of the temple, especially considering all of the details about sacrifices and laws I’d read in earlier portions of the Old Testament.
Now, to be fair, there are additional chapters and passages describing the interior of the temple and all of its furnishings. But concerning the construction? One chapter. Thirty-eight verses. The end.
But it’s what contained in those verses that kinda blew my mind this week. Verse one gives us the date and season of the start of the construction. Then we get a lot of construction talk. And then you get to the very last sentence of the chapter:
“So it took seven years to build the temple” (1 Kings 6:38, NLT).
What seems so significant and life-altering to us might be little more than a brief intermission to God.
Seven years.
But only thirty-eight verses.
How can such a monumental occasion be given so little screen time?
That’s when it dawned on me – for the umpteenth time in the last year – when it comes to the timing of God, we just don’t get it. And we likely never will. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are nothing like our thoughts.
But what really struck me was the difference between my story telling and God’s. If something significant happens in my life, and I get to tell that story to someone else, I’m not leaving out a single detail. I can guarantee that my story will quickly overtake thirty-eight verses. Especially if the event I’m relaying took nearly a decade to occur.
Yet when God tells the story of how His house was built, of how Solomon executed seven years of attention to detail, it’s barely more than a two-minute read.
It’s great that time is so meaningless to God, but what does that mean for us mere mortals who are bound by the element of time at every turn?
What seems so significant and life-altering to us might be little more than a brief intermission to God. A commercial break with barely enough time to grab a snack.
2 Peter 3:8 tells us that “A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day” (NLT). I always wrestled with that verse – it’s great that time is so meaningless to God, but what does that mean for me, a mere mortal who is bound by the element of time at every turn?
Let me ask you a question… how much of your stress / anxiety / tension / insert-difficult-emotional-experience-here can be attributed to the boundary of time?
For me, it’s nearly 100%.
And I think that’s what God is getting at – when it comes to timing, we don’t get it. We don’t think the way He does, so we have to trust Him. God is far more invested in the details of our lives than we give Him credit for, and I think this is just one more way He demonstrates that.
He can’t surprise us if He meets our expectations.
And I think our God loves a good surprise party.
Happy anniversary! Congratulations on a year of faithfulness of allowing God to use this space to encourage and convict and inspire us. Thank you for being raw and open and honest in your own walk with Jesus. Praying that this space becomes a community where we can all be willing to share and be vulnerable and encourage each other as we pursue His plan for us.