Everything happens in God’s timing, not ours
“He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.'”
Acts 1:7
I find it quite hilarious that I found this verse tonight as I was reading to our kids. When I woke up this morning I sat up in bed and said, “Oh crap, I don’t have a devotional to send out!” I worried about it for a while, prayed HARD for god to help me write a great one right now so it wouldn’t be too late. Now here I sit 8:30 typing away without having any issues coming up with the right words. God it is truly your timing, not ours. We would like to thank all of you who are reading this and say we are sorry it was late, but we KNOW that God allowed this to happen to prove his point that everything happens in his timing, not ours.
So often I find myself looking to God and saying, “It would sure be nice if you could make this happen now, like right now. Or “hey there big guy how about you tell me when this is going to happen so I can be prepared for it.” Wouldn’t it be nice to know when certain things are going to happen in our lives? Like when we will find the perfect spouse, or when our first child will be born, or maybe when we will either land the perfect job or start our business? Those things might be nice to know but it’s not in God’s plans to divulge every detail to us. And for good reason too. We would find a way to mess it up.
On the flip side would you really want to know the worse details like, when your child will pass away, or your friends, or whoever? Would you want to know when you were going to get a horrible boss, or horrible coworkers?
I’m glad that God doesn’t share his timing with me for a couple of reasons. One is that it allows me to live life without knowing when things will happen. It helps me to look for answers in him and his word when times are troubling. It allows me to give him full glory when times are great. It allows me to love unconditionally. If I knew when I was going to have issues with management would I stay at the job or start looking right away? There’s a good chance that I would start looking and then I would miss the learning experience that God was setting right in front of me.
Prayer
Lord we come to you late today and we are thankful for the opportunities that you have presented us with. Even those opportunities that we don’t see as “great” ones. We are thankful that everything is in YOUR time and not ours, because we know that you are teaching us every second of every day if we allow you to. God I would like to ask one favor for the entire world, that is that you continue to keep your time. You know what is best, help us to understand that you are in control and you are here to help us.Thank you for everything that you have done and will do for us, Thank you for YOUR timing
Amen
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts. We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us. We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us. And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.
We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name
Amen
A Little More
The other day I got a call from one of our clients.
I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.
“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”
My smile immediately vanished.
I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.
So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?”
To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.
They gave me the details.
My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.
But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.
My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.
I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.
so……
I made sure not to smile when I made the call. I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!
That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.
Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!
Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal. I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad.
Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.
The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.
No problem. Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.
Well……..
After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.
Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.
I told him that I would NOT make any promises.
But my team went to work!
Guess what????
We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.
My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.
Here’s the point of all this.
When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.
That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.
Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol
Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!
Dan Greer
