8. Not God’s Timing?
Back to The Spiritual Essentials
Perhaps it was simply not God’s time for the disciples to understand. If so, Jesus was not wasting his breath. They needed to be able to look back later and realize that Jesus had known it all ahead of time.
Despite learning the Scriptures from childhood and being taught by Jesus for years, it was not until after his resurrection that Jesus opened the disciples’ minds to see how all the Scriptures they had studied referred to Jesus (Luke 24:45).
He told the disciples who had sat under his teaching for years:
John 14:26 But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The Spirit’s role in reminding the disciples of Jesus’ teaching shows that Jesus’ teaching (found in the gospels) is critical, but it is not enough without the Spirit’s action on that teaching. We could think of the Word as a light bulb and the Spirit as the power. We are illuminated only when they work together.
There are seasons in God. Colossians 1:26 speaks of “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” There are words that will be sealed up “until the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4).
There are seasons in another sense as well. There is a time for sowing – for absorbing, memorizing and meditating on Scripture even when it makes little or no sense – and there is a time for reaping, when suddenly it all falls into place and we have that divine “Eureka!” moment.
Sometimes, even with divine revelation, we will never reap in joy if we never sow in tears. To reap, we must embrace the pain of study and times when reading Scripture is like feeding on dust. God honours faithfulness and diligence. As mentioned already, Jesus told his disciples that the Spirit of God would teach them and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had taught them. (John 14:26). The supernatural came only after the natural.
Had they not sacrificed years of their lives to sitting under Jesus’ teaching, the Spirit would never have done his part.
One final thought on God’s timing: there’s a time for asking and a time for receiving, but those who delight God and win for themselves much glory are those who praise God for answers before they hold them in their hands.
Likewise, there are seasons when spiritual understanding is easy, but there are those with the faith and devotion to God to gain understanding ahead of time.