For Those Who Wonder and Wait
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
Psalm 81:10
I have been a dreamer since I could say the word, and often grow impatient when it seems like things are taking a bit too long in the Easy Bake Oven success factory I thought my life would be. Letting go of the surety of my dreams has been something to grieve and surrender, time and again. But something inside me (is it hope?) refuses to give up on the dreams God has planted in my heart. God is the source of all true and good desires, and I believe God plants seeds of eternity within us that are ours to discover and grow today. I run into trouble when I look for a full and lush garden as the only acceptable sign that what God began in me is being cultivated. Trust me, God keeps saying, and I am trying. It is hard to trust when it seems to me that I am walking on nothing but air—when the bridge has gone out and I cannot see the way before me. In such seasons, the most daring dream I could fathom is that there is joy for me to embrace and experience today—not when all my questions are answered and my life plans have turned out precisely the way I want them. There is a particular joy to be found in embracing the unknown within us and before us, and that joy is the manna God gives us for each day’s sustenance. The following blessing is for those of us who wonder if our dreams still matter to God. May it create a little more space to breathe and to welcome joy, here and now.
I work in lifetimes, not years.
It takes humility and sacrifice to accept that the fruits of your lifetime might not be visible until the next generation, in someone else’s life.
You ask “What is the point?”
The point, my love, is eternity.
This—what you see and touch and taste and feel right now—was never meant to be the end of the story.
If you could truly taste and see my goodness in this lifetime, you would joyfully anticipate the continuation of your life into the next—that end that is no end, but the next chapter of ripening and flourishing of all that I have now planted in your heart (the seeds of eternity).
I want you to think bigger than this year, the next five years, than even your own lifetime.
There is more at work than you can see or dream.
You have no idea the joy that awaits you.
I want to give you a taste of that joy, now, today.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
Dare to taste, savor, reach for joy—even when you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
I am your Eternal Now, who longs for intimacy with you today.
You cannot plan out your life, but you can reach for my outstretched hand.
Will you walk with me?
Going Deeper: Listen to “If I Stand” by Rich Mullins. It realigns my heart towards the Kingdom and away from my limited perspective.
So if I stand let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through
And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You.
And if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home.