THE GOD OF PERFECT TIMING

Today, in Yerevan, I visited the old Spartak sports complex where it all began—the place where God started writing a chapter of my life I never could’ve had imagined.

When I was 5 and my brother was 6, our father decided it was time for us to get involved in sports. He had been a wrestler in his youth, so it made sense to him that his sons would wrestle too. He took us to a Greco-Roman wrestling club.

As we climbed the stairs to the training room on the third floor, we met a young man coming down. He asked my father, “Where are you taking these boys?” My dad replied, “To wrestling.” The young man smiled and said, “Why not try Judo? That’s on the fourth floor.”

My dad was set on wrestling, but after the class he said, “Let’s just go up and take a look.” So we did, we went up one more floor. That’s where everything changed. The young man we had met became our Judo coach.

And years later, when I was thirteen, that same coach organized a pilgrimage to Khor Virap. We walked nearly 30 miles from Yerevan. It was during that journey that I had my first deep encounter with the Armenian Church. That’s when I began to sense a calling—to serve God. (I’ll share more about it tomorrow.)

Looking back, that one unexpected meeting on a staircase led me to where I am today. But what if we had arrived ten seconds later? What if that young man had taken a different stairwell or paused on another floor? There would have been no meeting, no pilgrimage, no calling. But God knew. God orchestrated that moment. He placed us exactly where we needed to be at the exact right time.

The Scripture says, “At the right time, I, the Lord, will make it happen.” (Isaiah 60:22). God is the master of perfect timing. He is working behind the scenes, arranging the right meetings, opening the right doors, and placing the right people in your path.

While life may seem like a series of coincidences, but with God, there are no accidents. God is intentional, precise, and His timing is always perfect.

Bishop Mesrop Parsamyan
July 2, 2025