If you are a parent, or you’ve ever had a parent, there are certain phrases that you’re probably familiar with. “Because I said so.” “Are we there yet?” “It’s not fair!” “You will eat it and you will like it.” “As long as you live under my roof…” and of course, the perennial favorite, “We’ll get there when we get there!” It was this last one that came to me in a very interesting way last Sunday.
You see, for the past year and a half, my life has been a series of moving finish lines. Massive risks and potentially devastating challenges have hung in the balance with extremely rewarding successes. Countless times, I thought the end was in sight, and that victory and rest were in reach. Countless times, the finish line was suddenly moved further back – sometimes by months at a time. These setbacks have the potential to be knock-out blows if you let them. Each time, it gets harder and harder to get back up. But you must keep going.
At times, it has felt as if I was climbing a mountain. Looking nearly straight up the face of the sheer cliff I’m climbing, dodging falling rocks and at times hanging on for dear life, I could see the summit just ahead. Except that upon grasping that ledge and pulling myself up, I learned that it was simply a stop on the way to the top, as the real summit loomed overwhelmingly before me.
Both of these analogies came to me in church on Sunday. I believe that God waits for us to get to that point where we realize that we are totally helpless apart from Him. I run my own business. I answer to no one but myself for many things. But as success has come to the business, the scale of the ups and downs has grown. The fact that my peace of mind is greatly affected by the ebbs and flows of these daily swings of the pendulum is quite disturbing. I want to be more even-keeled. I want to rest in the plans (Jeremiah 29:11) God has for me. If there is one thing I have learned over the past year and a half, it is this: Don’t panic. And yet I do.
And so it was that I walked to the front of the church during a time of song and worship, to take the bread and the wine, and to kneel and have a little chat with my Lord. “You, Lord. I want more of you. Less of me. Sometimes I feel as if we’re never going to reach the end of these challenges. The finish line keeps moving. The summit turns out to be simply a stop on the way there. Give me courage and strength to persevere.”
In that moment, as has been the case in the few times in my life when I truly feel that I have heard directly from the Holy Spirit, I didn’t hear “a voice” in response. In fact, I didn’t hear anything. Instead, an entire sentence, fully formed and perfectly complete, appeared as if written across my mind.
“We’ll get there when we get there.”
I literally chuckled out loud. Thankfully, no one heard my laughter above the music. What a wonderful and simple truth. How could I know that this unassuming phrase – one that had been uttered by my parents to me, and that I have spoken on more than one occasion to my kids – could provide such a profound sense of peace to me at that moment.
“We’ll get there when we get there.”
In the mean time, press on. You be you. Let God be God, always giving thanks. His plan is perfect, and perfection can’t be rushed.
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Little Drops of Nectar 