Just in Time
Do you ever worry about what might happen in the future? Or do you find yourself
anxious about things over which you have no control? If so, then a teaching from author
and lecturer, Corrie ten Boom may help.
She learned a powerful lesson as a little girl. Having encountered the cold, lifeless
body of a baby, she realized that the reality of death would someday strike her family,
too. Perhaps her father or mother or sister, Betsy, would soon die.
She anxiously worried about these possibilities until her father came in one night to
tuck her into bed. Corrie burst into tears and sobbed, "I need you. You can't die.
You can't!"
Her father sat on the edge of the narrow bed and spoke tenderly to his daughter.
"Corrie," he said gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give
you your ticket?"
She sniffed a few times and considered the question. "Why, just before I get on
the train," she answered.
"Exactly," he continued. Then he gave her assurance that was to last a
lifetime. He told her that a wise God knows when she will need things, too.
"Don't run out ahead of God," he cautioned her. "When the time comes that
some of us have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need . . .
just in time."
Corrie and her family were sent to concentration camps where she suffered greatly
during World War II. She, indeed, was to experience the deaths of her parents and sister,
as well as numerous friends. She was to endure hardships which she could never have
imagined as a young child. But the words of her father stayed with her and proved to be
true. "You will look into your heart and find the strength you need . . . just in
time."
Regardless of the suffering or hardship she encountered, when she looked inside her
heart she found the strength she needed . . . just in time.
"'For I know the plans that I have for you,'
declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a
hope. 'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 'And
you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 'And I will be
found by you,' declares the LORD, 'and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you
from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,' declares the LORD,
'and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.'" Jeremiah
29:11-14
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The Lord is not
slow in keeping His promise,
as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish,
but everyone to come to
repentance.
2 Peter 3:9 (NIV)
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