Episode 37: God’s Timing—or Your Excuse? And Is That Really Biblical?

I’ve been working with a client whose book is considerably behind schedule.

He runs a big company. He has a family. He’s involved in his church and the community. He has a lot of responsibilities and demands on his time. So there are perfectly legitimate reasons why the book hasn’t been moving as quickly as either of us would like.

Recently, I checked in with him, and he told me he hadn’t done any work on it.

And I said something like, “Well, it’ll get done on God’s time.”

That sounds very faithful, doesn’t it?

But after I said it, I started wondering:

Was that really about God’s timing?

Or had I just given procrastination a very respectable Christian excuse?

Now, I’m not saying my client is procrastinating. I don’t know everything that’s going on in his life, and sometimes something really does need to move down the priority list because more important things require our attention.

We’re all busy. We all have limits. And sometimes we really do have more on our plates than we can reasonably or even realistically accomplish.

But my comment made me think about how easily we can use the phrase “God’s timing” when what we really mean is, “I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Or maybe, “I don’t want to deal with it.”

Or even, “I’ll do it when I feel more motivated.”

Years ago, I knew a pastor who was fond of saying something along the lines of, “If you don’t get it done, God didn’t need it to be done.”

I never challenged him on it.

But I remember thinking every time I heard it:

Really?

Because that sounds awfully convenient.

Maybe there are things God wanted done that didn’t get done because somebody didn’t do them.

We see that possibility throughout Scripture.

God gives people responsibilities. He tells people to go, to build, to speak, to work, to prepare, to serve, to obey.

And they can obey—or they can choose not to.

So I’m not sure we can look at everything we didn’t accomplish and conclude that God must not have wanted it accomplished.

Sometimes we may simply have dropped the ball.

There are absolutely times when waiting on God is the faithful thing to do.

There are things we can’t control.

Maybe an opportunity hasn’t opened yet.

Maybe someone else has to make a decision.

Maybe the resources aren’t available.

Maybe circumstances need to change.

Or maybe we honestly don’t know what God wants us to do next.

Those are real seasons of waiting.

And trying to force something before its time can be just as much of a problem as procrastinating.

Sometimes we want an answer now.

We want the opportunity now.

We want the relationship repaired now.

We want the new job now.

We want the business to grow now.

In fact, I feel that way about this podcast sometimes. I want it to grow now. I want more people to find it now. But I can do the work to make a good podcast and promote it. I can’t control how quickly it grows.

And that impatience can tempt us to start trying to make things happen on our timetable instead of trusting God’s.

Before long, we may find ourselves pushing doors that aren’t opening.

That isn’t necessarily faithfulness either.

So this isn’t as simple as saying, “If you aren’t moving forward, you’re procrastinating.”

Sometimes wisdom says move.

Sometimes wisdom says wait.

The challenge is figuring out which one we’re doing.

Because there’s another kind of waiting that looks spiritual on the surface but may not have much to do with waiting on God at all.

Sometimes we already know exactly what the next step is.

The phone call needs to be made.

The difficult conversation needs to happen.

The bills need to be looked at.

The project needs an hour of focused work.

The book needs another page written.

Nothing is actually preventing us from taking that step.

We just don’t want to.

Maybe it’s uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s boring.

Maybe we’re afraid we won’t do it well.

Maybe we’re afraid we’ll fail.

Or maybe there’s no deadline, so there’s always something else that feels more urgent.

That’s when “God’s timing” can become very convenient.

Ecclesiastes 11:4 tells us,

“Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.” (Ecclesiastes 11:4, NIV)

In other words, if we wait for perfect conditions, we may wait forever.

There will almost always be a reason not to start today.

There will be interruptions.

There will be uncertainty.

There will be something else competing for our attention.

And this is particularly easy with things that don’t have an outside deadline.

If your taxes have to be filed by a certain date, you know when they have to be done.

If your boss expects a report Friday morning, that creates a deadline.

But what about writing the book?

Starting the ministry?

Calling the person you’ve been meaning to call?

Dealing with your finances?

Changing a habit?

Beginning something you believe God has put on your heart?

When nobody else is setting the deadline, it can be remarkably easy to keep saying, “Someday.”

And then attach God’s name to someday.

I think there’s a useful distinction here:

What am I actually waiting for God to do—and what has he already given me to do?

Suppose someone is praying for a new job.

They can’t control which companies are hiring. They can’t control who chooses to interview them. And they certainly can’t control whether someone offers them a position.

Those things are outside their control.

But there are still things they can do. They can update their résumé, submit applications, make some phone calls, and prepare for an interview.

They can genuinely be waiting on God to provide the new job while still doing the work that belongs to them.

Or think about a damaged relationship.

You can’t control whether someone forgives you.

You can’t force another person to reconcile.

You may have to wait for something YOU can’t make happen.

But perhaps an apology is yours to offer.

Perhaps an honest conversation is yours to initiate.

Perhaps changing your own behavior is yours to do.

Waiting on God doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing.

And that may be the distinction we miss.

Faith is not an excuse for passivity.

But neither is activity proof of faith.

Sometimes we’re supposed to move.

Sometimes we’re supposed to stay put.

Sometimes we’re supposed to prepare while we wait.

And sometimes we need to admit that what we’ve been calling waiting is really avoidance.

I think James gives us another useful principle. He wrote:

“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” (James 4:17, NIV)

That verse isn’t specifically about procrastination. But the principle matters.

Knowing what we should do creates responsibility.

And maybe that’s where the real discernment comes in.

Do I genuinely not know the next step?

Or do I know it and simply keep postponing it?

Am I waiting for something that only God can provide?

Or am I asking God to do something he has already made my responsibility?

I’m asking myself those questions too.

Because when I told my client, “It’ll happen on God’s time,” there may have been truth in that.

The finished book, the opportunities it creates, the people who eventually read it, the impact it may or may not have—those things are not entirely within our control.

But pages don’t usually write themselves.

At some point, somebody has to sit down and do the work.

So maybe the question isn’t simply, “Am I waiting on God?”

Maybe it’s this:

While I’m waiting for what only God can do, am I doing what is already mine to do?

Because trusting God’s timing and taking responsibility for our part aren’t opposites.

Very often, they’re what faithfulness looks like together.

When we come back, we’re going to look at another place where it’s easy to give something more spiritual weight than it deserves: the things we call “biblical” that may really just be good habits, wise choices, or personal preferences.

And we’ll start with a simple question:

Is making your bed biblical?