But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son

Galatians 4:4

Solomon had it right. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Nothing happens outside God’s set time for it. Knowing this is vital for a peaceful walk with Jesus. It facilitates planning and prepares the believer to wait on God in everything. A good illustration is Israel’s dispensational history; sprinkled with their failures and triumphs.  

God took Israel and his family of sixty-six and incubated them in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years before calling them out as a nation. During that period, He prepared Canaan to receive them. Thereafter, God subjected them to forty years of desert wandering. He used it to train and cleanse them before the Promised Land.

Years later, God decreed seventy years for Judah in Babylonian exile when they rebelled in disobedience. In all these periods of waiting for God’s deliverance, they grew impatient, complained, rebelled, and rejected God’s leadership and plan.

Agreeably, one of the most difficult moments in life is having to wait for the right time for things to happen. Abraham struggled with it before believing God for Isaac (Gen. 15:2-3). Esau lost the blessings of his birthright because he wouldn’t wait for it (25:29-34). Perhaps King Saul is the quintessential example of impatience in waiting (1 Sam. 13:13-14). That’s why I love the story of Joseph.

As a young man, Joseph received God’s promise to become the head of his household and the torchbearer of the Patriarchal Covenant (Gen. 15:1-21). His patience and perseverance in suffering while he waited for fourteen years for its fulfilment is phenomenal (37:1-36; 39:1-46:34). During that trying period, the providential hand of God was orchestrating the right conditions and parameters for the fulfillment of the promise.

In Isaiah 40:27-31, God gives a beautiful promise that encourages me in waiting. “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint” (31 NKJV). Isn’t that beautiful?

Again in Habakkuk, God says this, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab. 2:2-3).

My classic encouragement in waiting is the first advent of our Lord Jesus. “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).

You may have been waiting and getting weary by now. My encouragement is, don’t give up. Continue to persevere, for God is arranging every condition and detail to surprise you. In the fullness of time, it shall surely happen according to His word (Hab. 2:3).