Come and listen, all you who fear God,
….and I will tell you what he did for me. Psalm 66:16 NLT
John 11:1-16 (<<click here to read the passage)
At a little past midnight on May 21st, 2020, Karen and I avoided tragedy…but barely. Shortly after we went to bed, we heard a sharp beeping. After a few moments of searching, I located the source – it was our carbon monoxide detector which was plugged into the outlet in our furnace closet.
We thought it was odd in that on that particular evening we weren’t even running our furnace, there was no need. And even if we had wanted to, it wouldn’t have worked because our whole area was out of power due to an accident of some sort. Our generator, located outside and behind the house, had kicked on right away, so we were a little baffled. What had caused it to go off?
We moved the detector out of the closet and into our bedroom…just in case.
Somewhere past midnight, it went off again. We had no idea why? To be on the safe side we called 911 and were instructed to open our windows and doors and to wait outside for our local fire department personnel to arrive.
When they arrived, their instruments detected lethal levels of carbon monoxide! The culprit? Our generator. It had been installed too close to the house and as it ran, the gas went up through our eaves and its deadly effects seeped into our home!
We escaped with only headaches and a bit of nausea. Death could have prevailed…but not under our Father’s watchful eye!
Reading through these first few verses of John 10, my study Bible notes* brought to mind God’s timing. We function, day in and day out, on world time. But God exists and is Sovereign outside of time. We often try to shove God into our convenient, little boxes. We demand, “Do it now! Help me now! God, where are You? I need You…now!”
Here’s the study note,
Jesus loved this family and often stayed with them. He knew their pain but did not respond immediately. His delay had a specific purpose. God’s timing, especially his delays, may make us think he is not answering or is not answering the way we want. But he will meet all our needs according to his perfect schedule and purpose (Philippians 4:19). Patiently await his timing.
In God’s perfect timing, Lazarus died. Jesus could have left right away and healed him immediately.
But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” v4
In the wee hours of the morning in May of 2020, we could easily have died…but we didn’t. God’s perfect timing was for us to live, and it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God would glory from this.
Yes, our detector did its fair share in bringing our dire circumstances to light, but it played only a small part in God’s plan for our lives. All praise to Him!
(One side note: Get a carbon monoxide detector! And if for some reason you have one and it has gone off, replace it! We were told that once it goes off, the part that detects the carbon monoxide can become defective and no longer work!)
*Life Application Study Bible New Living Translation
Aug 2nd, 2021, Mon, 7:03 pm
