One of the most difficult questions that any of us ever face is “Why?”  And we face it repeatedly.  Life is fraught with mystery.  Everywhere the question “why” raises its head.  Why war?  Why poverty?  Why disease?  Why earthquakes?  Why floods?  Why human suffering and heartbreak?  All of these are questions to which we do not have an answer.  So far as I know, nobody does.  So instead of speculating about “Why,” let us reflect upon why we do not understand.

     One reason we have trouble understanding is because God’s timetable is different from ours.  We literally live by the clock.  Everything seems to move at a hectic pace.  Highways are posted with minimum as well as maximum speed limits.  Deadlines loom for everyone.  Jet engines scream across the sky.  “The days are too short.”  “I have been up only an hour and I’m already two hours behind.”  “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”  These are expressions that we hear and use every day.  And, of course, we carry the same hectic pace over into the spiritual realm.  I heard of a church in Florida that advertises five-minute worship services “for people in a hurry.”  How sad!

     Sometimes we pray for something.  And we not only make the request, but we set the delivery day.  We pray for a burden to be lifted, or wrong to be righted, or a dream to be fulfilled.  Then we watch the clock, and if God does not punch in right on time, our faith begins to waver. 

     We must understand that heaven’s clock is different than ours.  We operate in the realm of time; God operates in the realm of eternity.  Simon Peter wrote, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.”  That simply means that God never has a time problem.  He never has too little; He never has too much.  Not so with us.  Sometimes the days are too short.  A busy person comes to the end of a workday amazed, almost intimidated by the clock.  The time is so quickly gone that there remains so much to be done.  Sometimes the days are too long.  An elderly person sits alone at home.  The doorbell never rings.  The telephone is silent.  No sound of a human voice.  The hours creep by.  It seems the day will never end.

     But God contends with neither of these problems.  He never has too little time.  “One day is with Him as a thousand years.”  He never has too much time.  “A thousand years as one day.”  He is never late.  He is never early.  He is always right on time.  God moves in the timeless realm of eternity.  So it is inevitable that at times we will misunderstand.  So be patient and trust in the Lord!