When God's Timing Meets Our Impatience: Why Hearts Must Be Ready First

I was in the middle of a complete meltdown.

I'd just thrown Joanne Krupp's book across the room—not because it was wrong, but because it was right. For the first time, I could see how Paul's words had been twisted to subjugate women for millennia when he was actually trying to liberate them. The weight of centuries of oppression crashed over me like a tidal wave.

"How could you allow this?" I demanded of God, my voice raw with emotion. "If you're really good and all-powerful, how could you let women be treated like domestic slaves for thousands of years?"

That's when the Holy Spirit spoke to me, loud and clear: "Susan, the hearts of men are now ready to receive the truth."

The Counterintuitive Nature of Divine Strategy

At first, those words seemed to come out of left field. Here I was, wrestling with God about millennia of injustice, and He responds by talking about men's hearts being ready?

But as His presence washed over me and the peace came, I began to understand the profound wisdom in that statement. God wasn't dismissing the pain of the past or minimizing the harm that had been done. He was revealing His strategy for lasting transformation.

You see, God could have forced men to treat women with equality. He has the power to make everyone do His will. But forced compliance isn't love—it's control. And God, the most powerful force in the universe, is also the least controlling.

Why Timing Matters in Transformation

The word "now" in God's message carried significant weight. It signaled divine timing—that moment when hearts become soft enough to receive truth that would have been rejected before.

Think about it: if I had tried to share these revelations about mutual submission and women's equality with traditional church leaders even fifty years ago, how would they have responded? Most would have dismissed it outright, perhaps even viewing it as dangerous heresy.

But something has been shifting in our culture. Men are beginning to see the contradictions between Christ's example of servant leadership and the dominance-based hierarchies we've called "biblical." They're witnessing the damage that power-over relationships cause in their own families and communities.

The hearts of men—not all, but enough—are becoming tender to these truths.

How Love Actually Changes the World

This divine strategy reveals something crucial about how the Kingdom operates. Love doesn't transform through force; it transforms through influence. It doesn't demand submission; it inspires it.

I could have gone on a rampage of social justice, trying to expose every church and leader who taught male headship. I could have sought retribution for the millennia of harm done to women. But that would have been operating in the wrong kingdom—the kingdom of power and control rather than the Kingdom of love.

Instead, God was inviting me to trust His method: heart transformation that flows from the inside out.

The Patience of Perfect Love

One of the hardest things for us to accept is that God's timeline rarely matches ours. We want justice now. We want equality now. We want all harmful systems dismantled immediately.

But God sees what we can't see. He knows that changes imposed from the outside without heart transformation are temporary at best, and often create backlash that makes things worse.

When women first began gaining more rights and opportunities in our culture, what happened? Many men began to feel displaced and threatened. Instead of creating unity, we often saw the seesaw effect—women rising while men felt pushed down.

This is what happens when we try to fix inequality without addressing the underlying heart issues that created it in the first place.

Signs That Hearts Are Ready

So how do we recognize when hearts are ready for these truths? Here are some signs I've observed:

Men are questioning traditional definitions of masculinity. They're asking whether being a "real man" requires controlling others or can be expressed through serving and empowering them.

Couples are struggling with hierarchical marriage models. More Christian couples are finding that "husband as authority, wife as follower" creates distance rather than intimacy in their relationships.

Church leaders are wrestling with women's gifts. Even in complementarian churches, leaders are having to explain why gifted women can prophesy, teach children, and lead ministries, but can't preach from the main pulpit.

Young people are walking away. The next generation sees the contradictions between the Gospel of love and systems of dominance, and many are choosing to leave rather than live with the cognitive dissonance.

The Invitation to Trust Divine Timing

None of this means we stay silent about truth or accept harmful systems. But it does mean we approach transformation the way God does—with patience, love, and strategic wisdom.

When God says "the hearts of men are now ready," He's not just making an observation—He's extending an invitation. An invitation to trust His timing. An invitation to operate in love rather than force. An invitation to plant seeds of Kingdom truth and trust Him for the harvest.

The beautiful thing about God's method is that when hearts are truly ready, transformation happens from the inside out. It's lasting. It's authentic. And it creates the kind of unity and equality that reflects His very nature.

As I've learned in my own journey, and as I've seen in my marriage with Gregory, when hearts are ready, mutual submission isn't a burden to be endured—it's a joy to be experienced. When hearts are ready, men don't feel threatened by women's equality—they celebrate it. When hearts are ready, relationships flourish in ways that hierarchies could never produce.

The hearts of men are ready. Not all of them, not yet. But enough to begin a transformation that will continue until His Kingdom comes in fullness.

And that's worth waiting for.

What has been your experience with God's timing in areas of personal or social transformation? Have you seen evidence that hearts around you are becoming more ready for Kingdom truths about equality and mutual submission?

Blessings,
Susan 😊