There have been several times in my life where this title applied to what I had. I can remember the hopeless feeling crying out to God for relief. He eventually answered but not always in my timing and often sending me a message about what I needed to do to get where I needed to go to be stable.

He's like that. There are many examples in his book of this but one that stands out is that of Hagar. After a conflict with Sarai, Abram's wife who had approved of Abram fathering her child (they got impatient waiting for God's promise of their own child) she ran away. Then an angel spoke to her assuring her of her place in society and her worth. The angel told her to go back and resolve things by submitting to her mistress.

Whether it be lack of drive, resources or opportunities that may not be coming our way, submission to God and his plan for our lives creates stabilization. We may learn eventually how to live on little or be blessed with much but with God in our lives we are never in a place where we have little or nothing.

Remember the story of the loaves and fishes, the asking of the disciples to cast their nets out again after catching nothing overnight, or the words of Paul who said he learned how to be happy with little or being well fed. We must conquer the moment with whatever we have knowing God will deliver whatever we need.

Hagar had nothing, probably felt worth nothing being a foreign maidservant, and feeling like she had been taken advantage of.  Many of us have been there or are right in the middle of it. Jesus said "in this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world".

Whether it takes 5 minutes, 5 months or 5 years to change our circumstances, belief that placed in God's hands it will change and multiply our situation to a positive result will enable us to praise our way through that storm of life.

It did for me, it will happen for you if it hasn't already. How do I know?

The Bible tells me so!

There was a song by Dr. John released in 1973 titled Right Place Wrong Time that has a ton of confusing lyrics in it but certainly has a catchy beat and delivery. To those of us in recovery it actually makes sense because our lives mirrored the chaos in those lyrics.

In these days of ultra sensitivity the words "I'd have said the right thing, but must have used the wrong line"  have personally been lived by me so I must think way before I speak because the right words and timing of the delivery is essential when dealing with folks. In truth we are not always right in our delivery and must be humble enough to admit we may be wrong.

In the life of Jesus you can see that he too seemed offensive to those who did not understand his message of hope, but to those who did he was a breath of fresh air. We are obviously not him, nor do we possess the divine skills he had but we can take heart in knowing he made a way for our constant shortcomings.

​You see at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly......But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Parts of Romans 5:6-8

We may be wrong in the world's eyes but in God's world he always makes us right.  If you look at the constant struggles of the Israelites to accept, reject, disregard, regard and totally worship other gods, despite what great things the real God had done for them, you always see God give them a chance to get it right. They were always given the right place to be by him, but seemed to have the wrong response to his generosity.

Habakkuk even had the audacity to think God had no idea what he was doing allowing the good but tolerating such evil. But God set him straight as he does with us in these challenging words:

Though it linger, wait for it, it will certainly come and not delay! Habakkuk 2

We can take that many ways, divide it up in conversation, but it is certainly telling us God's timing is way above what we understand. We are a constant work in progress, we are impatient, sometimes too quick to judge and while we give up on folks God never does. Here's something we know for certain:

It is always just the right time to stop doing the wrong thing, but it will linger if we follow the wrong God!