I worry about timing a lot.

It’s part of the idea of kairos, an awareness of the moment. The discipline to notice the person and the situation and the need in this moment and to choose the content that fits here and now.  (I wrote more about it once.)

I work hard to get just the right words at just the right time.

I even try for that here at 300words. I write words, I schedule them to be sent out at 1 am to one group of subscribers and at 6 am to another group of subscribers. The goal, I suppose, is to have helpful things in your box first thing in the morning.

Which is true if you live in the Eastern time zone in the US. If you live in Germany, on the other hand, the email shows up at noon. In the middle of the day. Or, in some ways of thinking, when the day is half over.

When we were in Germany with Andrew, he talked about getting my noon email. And I when I checked my mail, my own email showed up at noon. Not when I intended.

It feels wrong, somehow. My messages are showing up at the wrong time. But for some of you, they always arrive at noon, or at 10 am or at 3 am, or midafternoon. And that’s if you open your mail.

It’s a reminder to me of how little control we have of circumstances or of contexts. And it’s a reminder to me of how misguided we can be about what we believe is going on.

I could, of course, spend time programming the mailing software to get things to drop at particular times. But that’s not my calling.

Instead, I can work on being faithful. On reflecting, on writing, on listening, on applying correctly. And I can leave timing these words to your needs and situation up to God.

There are a bunch of places we can be faithful and leave the rest to God, I think.