As a project manager this is a difficult post to right.  I plan.  I LOVE plans.  Plans involve timing.  I intricately understand how the timing of one thing effects the next.  How the timing of when I topple this domino will impact when another falls.  As I plan out the details of a church planters vision, each element has a time associated with it. While I wallow in the minutia, church planters fly through the clouds with their big visions.  They dream of what the church will be like, the impact on the community it will have and the lives it will change.  And when they are honest those dreams have a timing to them.

Typically our first timing we push is the grand opening of the church.  Church planters dream of how many people will gather, how many groups will be formed and what ways those groups will be able to serve and reach their cities. But more often than not, our timing doesn’t pan out.  The state takes forever to process paperwork which delays when we file a federal form.  Signs that were ordered take longer to ship than expected delaying an event.  Only 100 people show on the grand opening rather than the 500 we dreamed about.  The $50,000 we planned to raise turns out to only be $20,000 and we can’t hire extra help as a result and the dominos begin to feel like they are falling in the wrong direction.

I have many stories from planting LifePointe where our timing didn’t work out.  And as I look back on them now I can see that though my timing didn’t work out, God’s timing did.  The stories are all over Scripture.  Acts 10 Peter has a vision in which he learns the gospel is for the Gentiles.  Cornelius had been praying and was told to send for Peter.  And as Peter is trying to figure out this vision he had during prayer, the Spirit reveals that three men are coming to meet him.  And sure enough there arrives the men Cornelius sent. God’s timing.

Or how about Abraham.  About to sacrifice his son, Isaac, only to be stopped at the last minute and an replacement offering provided.  Joseph was sold by his brother in slavery only to be elevated within Egypt in order to provide for his family years later.  Paul teaches the Thessalonians that Jesus’ return will happen in God’s timing.  Philip and the Ethopian is God’s timing.  There are so many stories.  The thing is in all of these stories the characters didn’t know it was God’s timing until after the fact.  That’s why faith is important.

I talked to a planter this week that I worked with a few years ago.  I remember the vision well.  It’s a common dream of having 200+ at the grand opening service.  We did everything right.  In fact our plan was executed nearly flawless, but the result was about 100 people.  Disappointed, yeah.  Confused, exhausted, doubting, mad, yeah.  But with this planter the vision never died.  He pivoted.  He re-imagined.  He kept praying.  And now three years later the vision is realized and new visions are birthed.  Our timing, no.  God’s timing, yeah, I think so.  Moral of the story: Just be faithful.  When things don’t happen on your timeline, be patient.  Pivot.  Keep pursuing the dream.  Just because your vision didn’t happen in your timing doesn’t mean it won’t happen in God’s.