The Proper Time, The Proper Way

I have an infection on my finger. I've had it for a few days. It looks horrible - red and swollen. It's kind of painful, too, especially if something touches it. I want to pop it, to drain the puss (and hopefully some of the infection) out, so my finger can return to its normal size, color and level of tenderness, especially before the camp out.

By the way, I'm going camping soon, so if I miss a few days of blogging sometime soon, that's why.

I want to poke my infected finger with something sharp to let it drain and heal, but I know I shouldn't. It's not that it's a bad idea. In fact, I'm going to have it drained later this morning. It's just that it's a bad idea for me to do it right now, using just the equipment I have access to. Doing that runs the risk of introducing another infection, making it even harder for my body to stave it off. It'd be better to have it done at a hospital, by medical professionals using sterilized equipment and effective germ-killing soaps and solutions. It's not that the draining shouldn't be done. It's that it should be done their way rather than mine.

A lot of times, people have their own way of doing things. Usually, people want things to happen sooner than they should. God knows the proper time and place and method for everything, and for things that He wants us to do, He has given us guidelines on how and when they should be done. (He has also given us a list of things that should not be done, no matter where, when, or how we want to do them, but that's beside the point.) Sometimes, there are things that He wants to happen, like for someone to overcome and illness or to come home from their mission, but He wants them to happen at the proper time, and in the proper way.

Waiting for the Lord's time can be difficult. Or, for some things, acting on the Lord's time when we would rather wait or do something else first can be tough. But as always, God knows better than we do. He knows that some things should wait and other things shouldn't, and everything that should be done should be done the right way. Popping my finger myself with a safety pin? Not the right way to do it. It's far better to just wait a few more hours until my appointment to get my finger drained by the right people at the right time and in the proper way.