Have you ever heard the expression, “Timing is everything”? Positively it might be used with reference to buying low and selling high or perhaps a potentially fatal accident that has been averted by a few feet or seconds.
It may be applied negatively as well, by simply reversing the events mentioned above.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that timing is everything, but being in the right place at the right time is certainly connected with doing the right thing.
For example, the Jewish girl Esther, who became the Queen of Persia through her marriage to Ahasuerus, was told by her uncle, Mordecai, “…you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
Pastor Charles Simeon (1759 - 1836) was walking in a cemetery reading headstones. One inscription read, “When from the dust of death I rise, To claim my mansion in the skies, E’en then shall this be all my plea, Jesus lived and died for me.”
Greatly impacted, Simeon looked around for someone to share the poem with. The only other person was a visibly distressed young lady.
He showed her the writing and offered to visit her home. The visit revealed abject poverty and squalor. The woman’s mother was dying and two bedraggled, hungry children huddled beside a small fire.
Simeon prayed with them and in a few days found assistance for them. In subsequent visits the young woman told Simeon that she’d been in the cemetery for five hours and was planning her suicide when he called her to read the epitaph.
The scripture reveals that timing was important to Jesus. Galatians 4:4 says, “…when the time was right, God sent his Son.” Jesus mentioned in John 2:4 that, “My time has not yet come.” The phrase, “His time had not yet come” referring to Jesus death, is employed twice in John 7:30 and 8:20.
So…timing is important for queens, pastors and even the Savior, but timing is also critical with reference to our making a decision to believe in Jesus.
The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and said, “…we beg you to make good use of God’s kindness to you. 2 In the Scriptures, God says, ‘When the time came, I listened to you, and when you needed help, I came to save you.’
That time has come. This is the day for you to be saved” (2 Corinthians 6:1, 2). Let’s switch expressions from, “timing is everything” to “no time like the present!”
— Pastor Ross Helgeton is senior pastor at Erskine Evangelical Free Church