“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.”

After Jesus Christ’s resurrection, He appeared to His disciples over a period of 40 days and gave them many convincing proofs that He was alive. At what was probably His final appearance to them, He told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). When His disciples heard this, they asked, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Jesus responded with the words of our verse for today.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we live by faith. We follow Jesus’ command that “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours,” (Mark 11:24). We know that Jesus wants us to bear fruit in life, “fruit that will last,” and we know that our prayers are meant to help us bear fruit (John 15:16). Given this, we ask God for things in prayer, believing that these things will come to pass. We expect God to answer our prayers.

Although God may not have given us a specific time, like the disciples of Jesus, we may nevertheless couple our expectations with a deadline. We may not only pray and believe for something to come to pass, but we may also expect it to happen by a certain time. If the time comes and goes, then we may be disappointed, believe that we have insufficient faith, or that what we were praying for was inappropriate in some way. We may even want to give up on our prayer.

The Bible has another explanation for the situation. God sets the times and dates by His own authority. We may expect something by a certain time, but God is the one who actually determines the time. God gave Abraham the child he had faith for “at the appointed time,” (Genesis 18:14); God sent the Messiah for which the Jews had been praying “when the set time had fully come,” (Galatians 4:4); and God will answer our prayers by lifting us up “in due time,” (1 Peter 5:6). We believe the mountains will move, but God decides when they will move.

Today, therefore, don’t give up on your faith or your prayers, for they will surely be answered in due time.

By John Huisman, friend of Bible League International