Always on Time

It has been said that when you get to the end of yourself, you get to the beginning of God. Often, when we’re going through a hardship, we have plans A, B, C, D, and E. And after we’ve gone through those, we find ourselves saying, “If God doesn’t come through, it’s over.”

It may seem horrible, but it’s actually an opportunity for God to show His glory.

When the disciples found themselves in the middle of an intense storm, Jesus came to them when the time was right. Matthew 14:25 tells us, “About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water” (NLT).

That means the disciples had been struggling against this radical storm for about nine hours. God is never late, but sometimes it may seem as though He is. Maybe Jesus arrived when He did because He was waiting for them to completely exhaust their resources.

It may have seemed like the last moment, but the time was just right. And what’s interesting is the Bible says that He walked on the sea toward them. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus walked like everyone else. He faced exhaustion, hunger, and all the rest.

But on this occasion, Jesus walked on the water. Perhaps this was to show His disciples that the very thing they feared was only a staircase for Him to come to them.

The disciples, however, were terrified when they saw Jesus. They thought He was a ghost. So, why did they not know it was Him? They weren’t looking for Him.

If they had been walking by faith and waiting by faith, they would have recognized Jesus immediately. Instead, they jumped to a false conclusion.

All too often we’re not looking for the Lord in our times of crisis. The Lord is there speaking to us. He is there wanting to lead us. But we don’t hear Him. We don’t see Him because we’re not looking for Him.

In our world today, we have so much chaos, instability, and conflict. And what did Jesus say? “So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!” (Luke 21:28 NLT). Look for Him.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 9:28, “He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him” (NLT). Are you looking for Him? If you’re in a crisis right now, look for Jesus because He is there.

We can only know so much and experience so much in our lives at a given moment. Job said, “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes” (Job 42:5 NLT). In other words, “I heard how You deliver people, Lord, but now I know.”

And that is the thing that often will happen in the midst of a storm. The Lord will come to us in a way that we have never known Him before.

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