My times are in Your hands
“But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.”Psalm 31:14-15
Reflection
Few things distress us as much as TIME. The delay of an answer, the wait that seems endless, the pressure of a running clock, the sense that it should have happened by now and did not. We live anxious about the timing of things — "why is it taking so long?", "what if it is too late?", "why now?". And it is in the midst of that distress with time that David makes one of the most serene declarations in the Bible: "my times are in YOUR hand". He hands God not merely the problems, but the STOPWATCH of them.
Notice David wrote this while being persecuted, surrounded by enemies, at a moment when everything seemed out of time. He did not say "my times are under control" nor "it will soon get better" — he said his times were in God’s hands. There is an enormous difference between carrying the weight of time in your own hands and depositing it in His. In our hands, time becomes anxiety; in God’s hands, it becomes trust. The One who created time knows exactly the right hour for each thing in your life.
The expression "my TIMES", in the plural, is rich. It is not only a specific moment, but all the seasons of life: the time to wait and the time to act, the time to plant and the time to reap, the time to weep and the time to laugh. All of them are in God’s hands. This means the season you are in now — even if it is one of waiting, of barrenness, of silence — is not an oversight of the divine calendar. It is in His hands, with a purpose and a timing He knows. God is never late and never early; He operates in the "right time", which almost never coincides with our "desired time".
Note what comes BEFORE that surrender: "I trusted in thee; thou art my God". The ability to release control of time is born of trust in the One who holds that time. You only hand the hours of your life to Someone you trust. And to trust God with the timing means to stop trying to force things, to stop despairing over the delay, to stop thinking you must control when everything happens. If you walk anxious about time — with a wait that drags on, with the feeling of being left behind — repeat David’s prayer today: "my times are in Your hands". And rest, because those hands never get the hour wrong.
Prayer
Lord, I confess my anxiety with time — the delay that distresses me, the wait that drags on, the fear that it is too late. Today I take the stopwatch from my hands and place it in Yours: my times are in You. You know the right hour for each thing. Help me trust Your calendar and rest in Your perfect punctuality. Amen.
Put it into practice
Identify a wait that has made you anxious (an answer, a change, something "overdue") and consciously hand its TIMING to God today: "my times are in Your hands". Resist the urge to force or hurry things by your own strength.
To reflect on
What "time" of your life have you been trying to control with anxiety — and what would change if you truly placed it in God’s hands?
Bible text: King James Version (public domain).