It's Christmas, and some of us are experiencing some very difficult times during this season. It might even feel more bitter than sweet for you right now.

I know it isn't always apparent to us, but God's timing in our lives is perfect timing.

Still, you might ask, "God, where are You? You should have showed up last week. You had a perfect opportunity, and You blew it." We don't always understand God's timing, just like the generations of people who'd been waiting for the Messiah.

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Galatians 4:4-5).

I want to focus in on the phrase, "the fullness of the time," or as the Amplified Bible puts it: "When the proper time had fully come." God sent Jesus to purchase our salvation at the time that He did because that was "the fullness of the time."

God always keeps His appointments, and God's time is always the right time.

The God of eternity is outside the realm of time and space, but He makes appointments, and He always keeps them. He is perfectly on time. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven." In other words, He's never late, and He's never early.

There are many verses in scripture on God's timing. Look at John 2:1-4, 7:30, 13:1, 17:12; Mark 1:15; and 2 Peter 3:9.

There's another truth here: God's time is always the right time. When the Father sent the Son into the world, it was at the fullness of the time.

What was going on in the world that made this point in time the fullness of time?

The general population of the Roman Empire had a pervasive hunger for spiritual things at that time, both among the monotheistic Jews and the polytheistic Romans. History tells us that the Jews' expectation for the coming Messiah was reaching a fever pitch right about the time Jesus showed up on the scene. They believed the ancient prophecy in Genesis 49, "The scepter will not depart from Judah…until Shiloh comes" (v. 10).

So, when the conquering Romans took away the right of tribal rule from Judah, the Jewish Sanhedrin put on sackcloth and ashes and wailed, "The scepter has departed from Judah, but Shiloh has not come." They were wailing because they believed God had broken His promise to send the Messiah.

At the same time, there was a young man up in Nazareth who was just about ready to lay down His carpentry tools and march down toward the Jordan River. His name was Jesus.

There's much more I could say about God's timing. But I want to bring it to a personal level, to comfort you. This season, this day, could be God's perfect timing in your life. He might be bringing you to a place of comfort and confidence and trust in Him that you've never known before.

Or He might be stirring things up in you, bringing you to a place of desiring a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This could be the fullness of the time for you.

Paul put it this way: "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2). If you've never asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior, commit your life to Christ right now—in this season.

Merry Christmas!