Crosswalk

I always laugh at people who stand on the street corner, constantly mashing the little button to signal the crosswalk sign to allow them to continue their course. They push it faster and harder, trying against hope that it will 'hear' them sooner and change on account of their persistence. Don't they understand that it is timed with the traffic? That they must wait until they are flowing with the traffic and not across the traffic? The timings, are to some extent, preset. Yes, there is an element of cause and effect. Pushing the button signals the presence of traffic, just as cars trigger the weight sensitive plates in the middle of the road. But even if nobody pushed the buttons, eventually the light would change on its own. The path is already open to them, if they could only see the larger picture.

Then I think about God's timing. The Way is already established. It is open to us. Our 'pushing the button,' accepting the call, in essence, is a signal that we are there, that we are ready. But God's timing isn't our own. We mash and push the button, demanding that the light change for us. But we fail to see the larger picture. We fail to see the wisdom of God's timing, not to allow us to be broadsided. The Way is there, and we will journey along our path, in His time.

Yet, there is a response. Push the button and the traffic sensors now know there is other traffic, and in due course the lights will change. And they will change, albeit sometimes seemingly imperceptibly, faster than if the button were not pushed. Hence, 2 Peter 3:12 where we "look forward to the day of God and speed its coming."