God Is On Time

Have you ever felt like God has forgotten you in time of sadness and struggle? Well, you aren’t the first one to feel that way. The Psalmist expressed the same sentiment, and pleaded with the Lord about it: “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake” (Psm. 44:23-26). The good news is that prayers like that are never neglected or rejected, as long as they go up with honesty and humility of heart. A really good example of this in the Bible is Mordecai the uncle of Esther, who was in much grief over the decree of the wicked Haman in the kingdom of Persia, to destroy all the Jews of the land (Est. 4:1-3). Mordecai was a faithful servant of the king and of God, but he refused to bow to Haman who was second to the king and also very wicked and proud (Est. 3:1-5). Haman devised a plan to destroy Mordecai, and the plan involved killing all the Jews who were in Persia (Est. 3:12-15). When these things were set in motion, Haman built a gallows solely for the purpose of hanging Mordecai. Mordecai had previously foiled a plot by two of the kings servants who had conspired to kill the king, but it had never come to the king’s attention that Mordecai was the one who saved his life. So it seemed that Mordecai’s reward for saving the king’s life would be that he and all of his people would be exterminated because of the evil pride of Haman. But when everything appeared to be lost, this is what took place on the same night that Haman built the gallows for Mordecai: “On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. And it was found written, that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him” (Est. 6:1-3).

It just so happened that Haman came in at that moment to request of the king to hang Mordecai on his gallows that he had built: “So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself? And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour. Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken” (Est. 6:6-10). So things looked really bad for Mordecai and all the Jews, and it appeared that Mordecai’s good deed for the king had been overlooked; but things changed drastically for his good in a moment’s time. Not only so, but things changed drastically from good to bad for Haman in that same moment, and he ended up being hanged on the same gallows that he had built for Mordecai (Est. 7:10). Regardless of how things may look, seem, or feel; God never forgets his faithful in their times of trouble: “But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (Isa. 49:14-16).

The Hebrews in the new testament were exhorted to remember God’s faithfulness toward them: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister” (Heb. 6:10). As it was with Mordecai, sometimes it looks and feels as though we are rewarded evil for the good that we have done. However we cannot trust in what we feel or how things seem to look, but rather in the infinite faithfulness of God who never forgets us or rewards us unjustly. He is still in charge of our lives, and of the world itself; and his judgments are true and right and good, though sometimes they seem to be missing in action. They are not missing however, and we need only to wait patiently on him, for he will always be on time as he was with Mordecai. David was by long experience well acquainted with these things: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God” (Psm. 40:1-3). There may be times that everyone else forgets us, but Jesus has us on his mind all the time. In fact it is when we are forgotten by everyone else that it feels that he too has forgotten us. He has not. Job was forgotten of everyone in his time of great affliction, except for his three ‘friends’ who made it their agenda to continually pour salt into his open wounds. He also felt that God had forgotten him, but as usual the Lord showed up and rebuked his friends sharply, while blessing Job with greater things than he had been blessed with before his affliction and loss (Job 42:7-16). There’s a good reason that our hardships and adversities are called “fiery trials” (I Pet. 4:12). Only remember that if we hold fast God will not forget us, and he will be there for us on time with better things than we had before. God bless.