When Is Right Timing?

It is common to speak of right timing, but how do we know when it is right timing? Certainly, we can look at our lives and see that we are busy and perhaps based on that say that the time is not right to add something else. Or we could look at our own sense of whether we are equipped, either with skills or mental bandwidth for a new activity.

These are all good and have their value. However, there is another aspect of timing that I would call divine right timing. The things mentioned so far consist of human timing. That is, what seems convenient based on our human perception of the situation.

I describe divine timing as when something lands in our laps such that it is now fully available to us. This is particularly important when it is something we have been saying we want in our lives. For example, let’s say we’ve been wanting and praying for an intimate partner. A person shows up in our lives who has all the qualities we’ve been looking for, but this a very busy period in our lives and we just can’t see how we could also fit in a relationship. This is where we might want to pause for a moment.

Divine timing doesn’t necessarily work in alignment with human timing or convenience. It doesn’t necessarily match our perception of what the timing ought to be, the ideas or stories we’ve made up about what it ought to be. In the relationship example, we might have decided that before we have a relationship we want to have our body looking just right, or we want our job situation to calm down, or we want our kids to be off to college. These are all just stories that we can change.

It is my experience that when what we’ve been wanting and praying for shows up, that usually is the perfect timing. When we try to make divine timing fit human convenience, we take ourselves out of the flow of life. We assume that our limited finite mind is important enough that it can finagle with what infinite intelligence has brought forth.

One poignant example of this in my own life was about 25 years ago when I had a desire to live and work in France. I couldn’t see how it would happen and eventually got busy and stopped pursuing it. Then a job opportunity became available at the company where I was employed that was also right in my current area of expertise. By then I had grown more attached to the area in California where I was living and decided it wasn’t good timing to pursue this job opening in France. While I choose not to have any regrets, when I look back on it, I can see that there really was no better time than when that opening came about, and no clearer opportunity again presented itself.

It was a great lesson in divine timing vs human timing that I never forgot. When prayer is answered or life presents us what we have wanted, it is a great time to pause and really consider accepting the good that has been given. I have come to believe that whatever time prayer is answered is perfect timing, and I get to rearrange my thinking or activities to fit divine timing rather than the other way around.

The invitation today is to be open to divine timing, which may require letting go of some of our ideas of right timing. If not now, when? Will there ever be a better time? You decide!

Enjoy the journey.

Gregory Toole offers spiritual coaching to individuals and groups who want to create and live extraordinary lives. For more information, go to gregorytoole.com.