God’s Love and Timing are Perfect God’s love for us means He desires only the best for us and already has it available to us. Sometimes what’s best for us doesn’t feel best, but we know feelings aren’t indicators of truth. Even so, it’s helpful to remind ourselves of God’s love when we don’t feel it. In Jeremiah 29:7 we read where God tells the Israelites to pray for peace for Babylon where they are slaves for seventy years. “Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. Often we feel stuck between a rock and a hard spot and rant to God about our problems as if He doesn’t already understand. I imagine as a slave in Babylon I would have wanted nothing more than my freedom. Yet, the Israelites were told to pray for the city, meaning praying for those who persecuted them and had power over them. They had to pray for their persecutors for seventy years before their own freedom would come. Seventy years meant that some folks would spend the rest of their lives praying for their persecutors and never see home again. God is well aware of our situation and needs. He understands, always provides our current needs, and has something better just around the bend if we hold on and stick it out in faith knowing He loves and cares for us better than we ever could for ourselves. Though some truths seem impossible to live with, we make it in God’s grace. Even when we have long periods of suffering, God is still there caring for us and never forgetting about us nor forsaking us. After giving the Israelites the nitty gritty that they were going to be in captivity in Babylon for the next seventy years and that they must pray for the peace of that place that entire time, God continued saying, “That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place (their home from which they were about to be forced by the Babylonians taking them into captivity). For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.” (Jeremiah 29:10-14) Of course we must do our part. Knowing what my part is must be the toughest part for me. I feel like a kid who with excitement for the blessing ahead runs ahead of God, skipping and laughing so happily and asking God to catch up with me. If I run ahead of God, how do I know that I am going the right direction? I don’t. God doesn’t give us personal prophets to deliver a seventy year plan we can follow, nor does He often give us many details in advance. Often God’s leadership is a step at a time keeping us in the following position, attentive for His next direction for us. How are our lives affected if we choose to thank God for His timing as we thank Him for His blessings to come? His timing is perfect and in no way needs our hurry-up to help it along. Oh what blessings may come if we humbly seek God, joyfully following Him and serving whomever, however, wherever, whenever He directs, knowing that through our obedience He brings blessings to others and ourselves. We are directed in Proverbs 3:5-6 to “trust in the Lord with all [our] heart and lean not unto [our] own understanding; in all [our] ways submit to him.” In return He will make our paths straight. (v6) Proverbs 16:9 further drives this home by reminding us that in our hearts we devise our way, but the Lord directs our steps.