Everything In Time

I took a walk around the countryside today and was talking with the Lord about my future. I love to dream about the future, where I’ll find myself someday, the adventures along the way, the people I’ll be able to meet, the experiences I’ll have, etc. I truly believe that life is this fantastic adventure and each day carries with it the opportunity for “game changing” moments, or completely unforeseen circumstances. I’ve also found that being reminded of where I want to go is some of the best medicine for staying motivated through the ruts of today.

Anyways, like all good future planners, I began to think through a tentative time-line. I wasn’t going for anything set in stone or unchangeable, but just a healthy recognition that goals ought to be time-oriented. It was at this point the Lord started teaching me...

He has been reminding me each day of His faithfulness to me. I can often be caught saying, “He will always outdo me in faithfulness,” and I truly believe it. Because of this, I’ve been working on my faithfulness to Him – holding on through the thick and the thin, believing and standing on what I know to be true even when it doesn’t feel like it is exhibiting itself in my life at the moment, etc. And the Lord began to lead my thoughts down a path that went like this…

First I thought about how difficult life can be after big life moments. It can be difficult to have faith immediately following the loss of a loved one, upon getting a diagnosis at the doctor you weren’t expecting, when you’re walking through an incredibly stressful or busy season of life, etc. Those moments are difficult and often devastating. It is a choice to remain faithful and stand on the promises of the Lord when the earth feels like it’s falling out from right under your feet.

Then I thought about how in these big life moments, our friends and family will gather and rally around us, encouraging us and helping us find a way to make it through each day. So while yes, it is still a choice to be faithful and stand on His promises, we generally have such a strong support system. When the difficulty really seems to “level up” is after the noise has faded, the crowds seem to have gone home, and the true assessment of the damages starts to really sink in.  It’s in these moments that we begin to realize that no one can fix this for us. We can be encouraged, but we are the only ones able to do the digging in this trench. And here we find ourselves at another opportunity to choose.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about how relative time is. Take my freshman year of high school for example… Some moments it feels like I was walking through those doors for the first time yesterday and yet at other times it can feel like it was 100 years ago. I’ve thought about how 5 more minutes of a snooze in the morning seems far shorter than the last 5 minutes of my classes. I’ve recognized that all cultures operate on a standard of time, and I’ve realized that the older we get, the better we are able to grasp this concept of time: how short or long a year truly is, how old 30 really is, etc. Time is learned with time, and thus we have our very best concept of time at the very end of our lives.

This is all going to tie together. I promise… I wouldn’t truly be a woman if I didn’t web, opening up at least five tabs at once, only to show you how they really all do relate to each other!

It was at this point in my walk that the Lord began teaching me more about time, about difficult seasons in life, and about faithfulness. As finite beings, we are forced to operate on a timeline. We have no way to wrap our minds around a concept of life that exist beyond one. Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Because of this, we often set boundaries for ourselves, gauging what ought to be deemed the beginning, the middle and the end of a circumstance. I see people doing this in their lives all the time, some consciously and others unconsciously. How often have you heard, “I just didn’t expect it to still be this difficult?” or “I thought I would be over him/her by now?” or “I thought by this point in life, I’d be at ‘X’ place (fill in the blank).” And this, my friends, is where we often unknowingly get ourselves into a pickle.

We know that life will bring about difficult seasons. We know there will be seasons we cannot initially foresee the process through or the end of. And with this, most of us have learned to be okay. Eventually we will know.

What gets us into trouble is when our expectations of time become definite - when we find ourselves expecting things we had no business expecting because there was no true way to measure its accuracy. I’m not saying don’t set goals. I’m not saying don’t stick to your goals because they get difficult. What I am saying is to allow your faithfulness to extend beyond your timeline.

It’s not about our timeline. It never has been. And if for you it still is about your timeline… Well then you’ve probably got a few more lessons in order before you try to tackle this one.

The Lord’s faithfulness to us is timeless. It always has been, it still is, and it always will be. It never changes.

I’m an imperfect human and thus I’m incapable of producing that kind of faithfulness. However, what I can learn to do is allow my faithfulness to grow beyond my timeline. It’s not about when things have finished, or when others ought to be beginning. It’s about faithfulness in the little things throughout the entire process.

Enjoy planning your timelines, but remember they are just that: plans. What matters is not even so much what ultimately follows, but rather the way in which you follow.