I had a perfect reminder yesterday of just how perfect God's timing always is.

For many months, I have been talking off and on to a friend of mine, Mark, about possibly coming on the board of directors for the Christian school Evan attends. He has waffled back and forth during that process. He had confided in me that his wife was encouraging him to pursue this but he needed to pray through it some more and make sure it was the right thing to do. I couldn't argue with that (though I sort of wanted to!)

I spoke to him again last week about it and he asked me if we could get together for coffee or something sometime to talk it through a bit. Well, I must admit, he had asked me this during a time when I was betwixt and between a number of projects and it slipped my mind and never made its way on to my "to do" list.

On Monday of this week, though, we had a school board meeting and the possibility of Mark joining the board came up again. All of the board members have been very much in favor of his joining the board because he has a great deal of experience and expertise in the financial area and that is an area where we could use some help. During Monday's meeting, I was reminded of the need to get together with Mark.

On Tuesday morning, just as I was thinking of calling Mark, my phone rang. He was going to be driving by my office and asked if he could stop by to say hello. We talked about a number of things and eventually the conversation turned to the subject of his possibly joining the school board.

This is perhaps something he'd told me before but I had not fully grasped it. Mark has, on a volunteer basis, been lending his financial expertise to the school so, with that already going on, he was struggling in his own mind with the question of whether he really had anything of additional value to bring to the board.

Well, in our board meeting the day before, we had spent some time strategizing on the board's activities for the next year or so. Things like surveying community members, needs analysis, impact assessment, visioning, and a possible capital campaign are all at the top of our priorities for the next year. I could see Mark's face light up as I told him these things. You see, he currently works for a very large non-profit organization and the things I was telling him that we want to do are exactly the things that he has been involved with as part of his work for the past several months.

It was then that he saw how he indeed would fit on the school board and would play an important role in things going forward.

I believe that God's hand was very much in establishing the timing of all of this. There have been points when I was frustrated by not having Mark on board sooner but I now see that this needed to be a calling for him from God, not just a couple of friends asking him to help out. I also see how this has all created a huge affirmation that the school is heading in the direction that God wants us to go with the things we're pursuing.

But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. (Habakkuk 2:3, NLT)