If God is telling you when to buy and sell it is good advice. For the rest of us, buy low sell high correct but useless: you don't know what high and low are - unless of course you have supernatural sources of information. (there are other ways of getting this information, but they are illegal).

An IRA is one of the best retirement accounts you can have, so you should put focus on getting it maxed out. (However if you get a match in your 401k you are throwing away free money to not take it, in general the difference between 401k and IRA doesn't make much a difference)