Divine Adjustments

I don't know anything about watches or clocks.

I'm even mystified by the mechanics I have to go through on a thirty-day month to get my stem-wound calendar watch advanced to where the date and day are both correct.

But I do know that "balance," "adjustment," and "good timing" are three clock-talk terms. They're also three terms that need to come to mind as we are praying.

I made a major calendar adjustment this past week. I was to have spent the whole month of next January ministering in conferences and churches throughout Australia and New Zealand--major cities and many conferences.

The trip had been scheduled for months. I was committed. But something was wrong. The whole thing tied into the same season last spring when I made a whirlwind set of bad decisions. I have since confessed it all to the Lord, and have marveled at how He has compensated, redeemed, covered, and forgiven.

But this particular trip, this residual, lingering remnant of that season remained. It had never occurred to me that it, too, might be wrong.

It was.

Two weeks ago, while I was up early one clear and chilly morning, walking a leaf-strewn back road in Maine, praying and communing with the Lord, He told me.

He didn't slap me in the face with it. But like a Master of timepieces, He gently adjusted something in my understanding. It didn't explode, it didn't introduce a recorded announcement. Nothing dramatic happened. But one small, inner sense was awakened. It stirred--and I then stood up and shook violently.

My sense of unsettledness.

I knew something was wrong. If my wristwatch started chiming on my arm it wouldn't have been any clearer. Something was badly out of balance. Out of timing. Out of synch.

Father, I prayed urgently, stirred in the depths of my soul as though an ocean wave had struck, what's the matter?

I didn't hear a voice, but I did receive a clear, concise impression. A message from Headquarters. Pray about the Australia trip.

I did. I began then and continued for seven days. I felt freed to ask the heavenly Father to give me firm confirmation as to whether I should go or not.

The events of the days which followed are thrilling to review: (1) the peace in knowing He was going to set the balance and establish timing for the trip; (2) the joy in knowing He never abandons us to our own imperfect planning, but will signal us in time; and (3) the confidence that He would take care of things on both ends. If I went in January, He'd cover all matters at home base in California. If I stayed home, He would supply the ministry needed in Australia and New Zealand.

When the seven days were past, a powerful and precious thing took place. The Lord sent the answer. It was clear. It was sure. It was as finely tuned and perfectly understandable as the time on the face of a clock. The precision of the message brought the confidence you would have in setting your watch by a giant steeple timepiece maintained by a master clockmaker.

Looking back on it all this morning, my heart is filled with praise and thanksgiving to the God who keeps us in time... who keeps us adjusted to His will and His way for us.