When is it going to be my time? 

I asked when I was little girl, and wanted to be moved up to the competitive gymnastics team like everyone else. I asked when I was in middle school, and everyone else was allowed to wear makeup but me. I asked when I graduated college, and everyone seemed to be getting their dream jobs, or traveling the world, but me. I asked when I saw life unfolding for my friends with new families, babies, homes, and careers. I asked when I saw worship leaders pouring their hearts out on stage, before the door was opened for me. God, when is it going to be MY time?

Have you ever felt like that? Usually the answers to these types of questions sound something like, “Be patient, it will be your time someday”, or, “Good things come to those who wait”. True and true. But there’s one truth that I wish I could’ve grasped onto much sooner. Something that now resonates with me, and has completely changed my life. Something I want to share with you.

Your time is NOW. You just need to answer this….for what? It’s not that you just need to wait and look forward to “your time” and all of the things you long for; you need to understand that HERE and NOW, there is purpose. It IS your time. It just might not be for what your eyes are fixated on. Maybe right now is a season of preparation. I think back now, what if my gymnastics coaches had decided to let me compete when I wanted to? I probably would have gone out on to perform, and soon realized that I wasn’t at all ready. I likely would have ended up embarrassed, or  worse, extremely injured. See, it was my time to practice, to train, to strengthen my skill set. And had it not been for the coaches that redirected my mindset to laying that solid foundation first, I might have wallowed in disappointment and frustration rather than working as hard as I could to prepare to compete.

Could you imagine a pilot being entrusted to transport hundreds of people to a location, without having the proper training first? Or receiving that dream job when you weren’t yet ready for the responsibilities of it, and then losing it? Or God bringing your future husband into your life and you missing it because you were on Tinder swiping right at every decent looking picture you saw (also I just had to Google if swiping right was good or bad – I’m out of touch, whatever… you get it).

It’s exciting to think about the future, to think about our destiny, about where we will be in 5 years, or how our life will end up panning out, don’t get me wrong. But next time you start to ask, “When is it going to be my time?”, try changing that question to, “What can I do with the time I have RIGHT now? What is it my time to learn, to achieve, or to grow from?” Because when it comes down to it, all we really have is right here, right now. And you won’t get this time back.

 What do people really get for all their hard work?  I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.  Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.  So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.

Ecclesiates 3:9-12

With the Father’s love,

J