In due time
Submitting to God's mighty hand
Peter tells a pressured, suffering church to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Two phrases carry the weight: the mighty hand, and in due time. The same hand that presses you low is the hand that will lift you, and it works on its own schedule, not yours.
Mary sang the same truth in the Magnificat: he has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly. The lifting of the humble is God's specialty and God's prerogative. The leader's job is to humble himself and wait; the exalting is God's, in due time.
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”
— Peter — 1 Peter 5:6 (WEB)
Humble yourself and trust God's timing for any lifting. The hand that humbles is the hand that exalts — in due time, not yours.
“He has put down princes from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly.”
Peter ties humility to patience: submit to God's hand and wait for his timing. A leader formed here humbles himself and entrusts the timing of any exaltation to God. He resists the impatience that grasps for elevation now. The inner work is submitting to God's hand and his schedule.
Humble yourself under God's dealings, even hard ones, rather than fighting for control. Wait for God's timing instead of engineering your own advancement. Help your team trust God's schedule rather than grasping out of impatience. Submit to the hand that humbles, trusting it to lift in due time.
Leaders grow impatient with God's timing and grasp for exaltation now, abandoning the humility that waits. The blind spot is engineering your own lifting because you are tired of God's schedule.
Identify where impatience is tempting you to engineer your own exaltation. This week, deliberately humble yourself under God's hand there and wait on his timing.
Impatience is the enemy of humility. We want the exaltation now, on our timetable, and so we grasp and self-promote rather than humbling ourselves and waiting. Peter says the hand that humbles will lift — but in due time, not ours.
Are you humbling yourself under God's hand and trusting his timing, or trying to engineer your own exaltation because you are tired of waiting?