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Timing
My first point on the subject of timing is that the Lord has His own timetable. “My words are sure and shall not fail,” the Lord taught the early elders of this dispensation. “But,” He continued, “all things must come to pass in their time”. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith means trust—trust in God’s will, trust in His way of doing things, and trust in His timetable. We should not try to impose our timetable on His. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said: The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best? The same is true with the second coming and with all those matters wherein our faith needs to include faith in the Lord’s timing for us personally, not just in His overall plans and purposes. [Even As I Am. More recently, during last April conference, Elder Maxwell said: “Since faith in the timing of the Lord may be tried, let us learn to say not only, ‘Thy will be done,’ but patiently also, ‘Thy timing be done’”. Indeed, we cannot have true faith in the Lord without also having complete trust in the Lord’s will and in the Lord’s timing. Among the persons who violate this principle are those who advocate euthanasia. They are trying to take an essential matter that we understand to be determined only by God and accelerate its occurrence according to their own will or preference. In our service in the Lord’s church we should remember that when is just as important as who, what, where, and how.
