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Hi everyone! I trust you’re having a good week, and hope you have a wonderful May long weekend, whatever you might have planned for the season.

Those of you who are life-long Vancouverites, or who’ve come from other parts of the world but not spent a lot of time elsewhere in Canada may not realize it, but the May long weekend is a very special time of year for our counterparts who live in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Our relatives on the prairies all get very excited about the Victoria Day weekend because this is the time when they can actually start to plant their gardens!

Can you imagine! It sounds strange to us here, because the many gardeners in our church have been lovingly caring for their gardens for months now. You’ve got spectacular flowers growing, annual plants are well established, and your perennials are up and happily doing their thing. I’m not much of a gardener myself, and Diane’s love for gardening is limited by the number of pots we can fit on our deck. But we both appreciate growing things, and we’re constantly impressed by what we see of the gardens others are tending with so much skill. So we’re conscious that our gardening friends are well into this year’s season. And we can imagine how sad it would make some of you if you had to wait until the middle of May just to begin getting seeds in the ground and putting out the little green babies that beautify your yards.

Though we try not to feel too superior about our situation here on the coast, it’s easy to be a little sad for those friends and family who can’t plant anything until now, out of fear that frost will kill the plants at night or a spring snowstorm might bury them.

As I’ve thought about this difference this week, it’s caused me to reflect on God’s sense of timing. It’s tempting to think that our Lord would always do things on the same schedule for everyone, everywhere. That would be more efficient, wouldn’t it? But it’s not how He works. Not the way He sets up our ecosystems in different parts of the world, and not the way He interacts with the rest of our lives, either. Sometimes He moves so quickly that we can hardly keep up. Sometimes it feels like He moves slowly—taking time to answer prayers, to meet needs, to make us aware of His presence and to unfold His plan—and we’re so very tempted to be impatient. Sometimes the flowers bloom in February. Sometimes it’s still snowing in May.

It can all be very puzzling, but it’s how our Lord works. Somehow it all reflects His wisdom and contributes to the beauty of the plan He is unfolding in our lives and our world. So, little by little, we learn to appreciate and trust Him, even when His timing surprises us or causes us to scratch our heads. It’s one more way that He helps us to grow as we walk with Him in this amazing and surprising world.

(Some of you have been watching The Chosen this year, whether in 20/20 or in other settings. If you have, you’ll recall that there’s a running joke through that series about the word “soon.” It’s a very biblical insight; it reflects the truth that what is “soon” for God is sometimes much quicker, and sometimes much slower than what we expect. It’s another way of capturing this same truth about God’s sense of timing, which is not the same as ours.)

Well, whether you are a gardener or not, and whether you feel like God is moving too quickly or too slowly or just at the right speed these days, may He give you regular reminders that He knows what He’s doing, and may you find peace as you adjust your pace to His.

On other fronts, for those who like to read ahead in preparation for the week’s sermon, this Sunday we’re going to be thinking about Abraham and his nephew Lot, especially as the two men interact in Genesis chapter 13.

I’ve enjoyed digging into this story again. When I first looked at it, I thought we’d mostly be talking about the importance of prioritizing family well-being over financial success. (Abraham lets Lot choose where to live, rather than choosing the richest pasture land for himself.) That would be a good lesson, and it deserves some meditation, as it’s certainly a biblical value. But the more I examined the story, the more I realized that there are other themes which get more emphasis. That happens often. I expect to see one message in a biblical passage, but I find that there are other important things I haven’t noticed or thought about. I try to follow where the text leads, and hopefully that’s what will happen again this week. Please do be praying for me as I complete the work of preparing for Sunday.

If you’re reading ahead, we’re going to focus our attention on Genesis 13:1-17, so that’s where I would spend my time.

If you’re a really eager-beaver and you’d like to get all that Genesis has to say about Lot, you can continue reading through chapter 14:1-16, and then jump ahead and read 18:16 through 19:38. Be forewarned, though: chapter 14 spends a lot of time naming kings in a battle, so it’s not really exciting for the modern reader. Chapters 18-19 are one of the saddest stories about bad choices and negative consequences for the family in all Scripture. So that’s not a happy selection. But it does fill out our picture of the man Lot was. I’ll mention it briefly this week, but I’m not going to dig into all the gruesome details from later chapters.

That’s my news for today. Again, have a wonderful week, and a great weekend. Hopefully, we’ll see many of you on Sunday. For those who are away doing other things on the long weekend, safe travels. Richest blessings on everyone!

—Pastor Ken