NASA Scrubs Shuttle LaunchNASA was supposed to launch it's final "evening" shuttle launch this morning at 4:39AM. I woke up in time to make it outside ten minutes or so before the launch in order to see it. Yes, I checked the latest news online beforehand - and everything seemed to say the launch was a "go!" So I went and stood in the cold (50-something degrees!!!), wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and I looked North and watched for signs of the shuttle. Since it was so cold, I stood there wishing I had worn a jacket out, but I didn't budge for the next 15 minutes, because I didn't want to miss the launch!
I have seen many launches before, from where I live in West Palm Beach, but I've never witnessed one in the darkness of night, where (I presume) the glow of the rocket fuel would be all the more spectacular to witness. So I continued to stand outside my front door and look in the right direction ... waiting to see a twisting pillar of fire formed in the night sky ...shivering in the cold ...but seeing absolutely "NOTHING!"
At about 4:45AM (6 minutes after the launch was to happen), I finally came inside. I immediately went to the computer and checked the status of the launch, only to learn the launch had been scrubbed "NINE MINUTES" before it was to occur! NASA had called off the launch because the weather was not exactly as it should be, and they didn't want to take any chances. Reports further revealed NASA's desire to attempt the launch again sometime within the next 48 hours, but nothing is sure yet. It all hangs on the weather, which nobody but God can control.
And so it is with LIFE in general! Sometimes we expect something to happen at a certain time, and all the circumstances surrounding that "something" look promising, and we keep looking in the right direction, as we wait and watch. But what we thought was going to happen at a certain time and in a certain way doesn't take place! In fact, no manifestation at all! That "something" that we were so much looking forward to gets scrubbed and delayed until a more opportune time.
"God's time" is the "more opportune time," and yet his plans and timing usually do not make sense to us, but we should trust him nevertheless. Isaiah 55:8 tells us that God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours, and so we should trust him and his timing even when we can't understand what he's up to! Even if it means we've been standing out in the cold, waiting and watching, and believing that all signs are signaling a "go!" Only God knows when the right time will be, and so it's incumbent upon us to keep praying and trusting him, as we should keep "looking up," knowing that he will manifest those things he has ordained in his time!
As God told the Bible's Habakkuk, "I will bring about this thing at a certain time, and it will not delay!" ...and God will certainly bring about those things in our lives which he ordains, but they will happen according to "his" timing ... and they won't be a second too soon or too late! God told Habakkuk he could take this news (about his plans and timing being perfect) to the herald and let him run with it. In other words, God was saying, "Things I have ordained will happen in my time, and it will be the PERFECT time, and you can take that to the bank!"
Let's go to the bank. Let's keep looking up. Let's continue trusting God's plans and his timing. The incredible and glorious glow of that miraculous launch will happen even yet!
