Watching sports on TV has never been an interest of mine, probably because I didn’t take time to learn the rules. I do remember watching the Chicago Blackhawks play hockey and won’t soon forget the fight I saw between two players. A referee quickly intervened, and the result was an official time-out for one of the players. I suppose that’s the NHL’s version of counting to 10, but no one wants to be forced to sit quietly while everyone else is still in the game.

Little children can relate. When mommy says, “Stop that behavior or you’ll have to have a time-out,” a two year old knows she means business. If he continues to disobey, he ends up in the time-out chair. During this confinement, toddlers and hockey players agree: two minutes is an eternity!

Little Jaxon, grandson of my friend Lois, recently found himself in a time-out. Although he cooperated with his sentence, a photo record (taken via Skype) depicts his struggle to wait out the two minutes.

Hockey players, children, and all of us share the frustration of forced time-outs, but believe it or not, God makes good use of them. He doesn’t always use them as discipline (toddler-style) or punishment (hockey-style) but often makes us sit still so he can work at setting up good plans for us. Unfortunately, none of his time-outs fit into two minutes. They’ve been known to last for weeks, months, or even years.

When that happens, it helps if we try to see things from God’s perspective. A seemingly interminable time-out is but a nano-second to him. He works long-range, is a God for the long-haul, and concerns himself with both the long-and-short of our lives.

When we find ourselves in time-out, we can be content if we’ll recognize that leaving too soon means stepping out from under God’s protective guidance about whatever it is we “just can’t wait” for.

We can prematurely terminate our time-out for something as trivial as an impulsive purchase or as serious as choosing the wrong marriage partner. Though staying in the wait-zone longer than two minutes is distasteful, moving forward when all indications are to “stay put” is like eating a beautiful steak before it’s been cooked.

But that’s not all.

When little Jaxon had completed his two minutes, he was given the pleasure of his mommy’s long-awaited time-in, accompanied by a hug and kiss of approval and love. If we bolt out ahead of God, we not only miss out on his plans, we lose the feel-good approval that comes when we hear, “Now is the time.”

When we let him decide our wait is over, all sorts of lovely surprises happen. That’s because while we were sitting in time-out, he was busy setting up the invisible specifics. And when he says, “Time-in!” we can be sure that whatever follows next will be worth the wait.

“The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8-9)