There are times when I feel frustrated that God’s timing does not seem to fit with my plans or expectations. However, time and time again I have seen how the Lord’s timing is perfectly planned and works so much better than my own idea of how things should have been done.
A number of years ago when I was trying to find a new church to occupy one of our buildings, I had five churches that were showing an interest in taking the property. Although they were all doing good work, they were not churches that were reaching the local community. I did not have a peace about letting the building to any of them, but could not see any alternative. I therefore scored each church, based on our priorities for a church occupying our buildings. With one church coming higher than the others, I started a discussion with them on what works needed to be carried out to the building and how affordable these would be. Not only was this not looking positive, but I still did not have a peace and clear direction that this is what the Lord wanted.
Suddenly another church heard about the property at the end of one week, arranged to view the property over the weekend and approached me on the following Monday. I spoke to them on the telephone about their vision for using the building, their history and plans for the future and realised that they were ticking all the boxes where the other churches had not. I asked them to put a written proposal to me by the next day, as I was meeting with our Chairman of trustees. I received their proposal by email and discussed it with our Chairman and, as I was passing the location in East London later that same day, I arranged to meet with them, to hear further about their work and pray with them. They were exactly what we were looking for and we were able to put everything in place within a week. I then knew why I had had to delay with the other churches, to fit with the Lord’s perfect timing on bringing this new church to us. The new church is still occupying our building in Forest Gate, East London and are doing an amazing work with the local schools, gangs and community generally.
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