Genesis 1:5 There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
When I was four or five, my grandparents took my siblings and me on a drive, just down the road. I should have known, when we all piled in the RV, that this was no short trip. My grandparents felt it was better if we did not know about the four-hour drive, but it was the not knowing that killed me. I kept hoping that we would arrive . . . right now! The ride home was not as long (probably only an hour) as I knew what to expect.
Like the long RV ride, I am often frustrated by God’s timing in the waiting and not knowing. When I started out in recovery, I wanted my life fixed . . . right now. When I got home from treatment, I wanted all of my defects gone . . . right now.
In today’s passage, we are told that God made the world in six days, resting on the seventh. Was this six literal days? Was it epochs? I have argued on both sides of this one, insisting that I knew God’s timing.
In my need to quantify God, I claimed knowledge of an event that I probably could not understand if He sat down and drew me a picture. When I should have been working on my faith, I was working on my age-of-the-earth debating points.
Now though, it is far more important for me to accept that my timing is not God’s timing. God is not bound by time as I am and He does not work on my schedule. I find only frustration when I demand that God fit my timing.
Faith is not claiming knowledge of the age of the earth. Faith is allowing God to be God and to patiently submit to His timing. Like the RV ride, it is better if I can just accepted the not knowing. It is in only letting go of my timing that I can experience the peace of God.