“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised, is faithful.”

-Hebrews 10:23

What I have come to realize is that you can make your vision board, build new disciplines, and focus all of your attention on the thing you are passionate about. But if it is not in God’s timing for you to be at a specific point in life, no amount of work can push you past His sovereignty.

You may meet people, get jobs, or get great opportunities through your hard work, but you know when it is not the door you have been praying God opens. Sometimes, or maybe if you are like me, a LOT of the time, the goal we seek to reach is often standing at the end of a long marathon of everyone’s favorite thing…waiting.

Believe me, I have been there. And in all honesty, I am still so far from the end of that great marathon I believe God is walking me through. Of course there are many blessings God reveals along the way. But what I speak of now is the period of time between the big dream and the actual experience.

Normally, my way of coping my anxiety and lost hope in these moments is through reminding myself that God is a God of seasons. And if I really feel like He is calling me to something, I believe eventually the flowers will bloom again. But lately, this strategy has been having a hard time giving me lasting peace. And thankfully, God seemed to have noticed because just the other day, He smacked me with a mountain of truth that left me in complete awe.

“I will believe I can know peace without knowing what comes next.” – Morgan Harper Nichols.

Maybe this quote doesn’t quite knock your socks off. But after enduring what has felt like forever of door after door shutting in my face, leaving me with nothing but confusion and growing insecurities, this hit deep. And just before I heard this quote, this one topic kept coming up around me: We cannot afford to live without being in awestruck wonder of God. Every. Single. Day.

But in order to capture the depth of that thought, we must first understand the verse above. This one verse speaks in three different tenses.

“Let us hold fast…” is in present tense. It is an instruction for what to do right now with the hope that God gives. “He who promised” is in future tense. Pointing to the statements of power and experience that have yet to be revealed in fullness. It is also offering the place where you find the hope it previously directs you to “hold fast” to. Lastly, “is faithful” is in past tense. This tells how the glory of God has already been expressed and has been proven credible.

But what truly drove me to this verse was the order in which it was written. It provided wisdom for the present and a peace for the future by reminding you of the past.

As the creator of time, God knows how it effects us. He knows that it grows us, but also limits us. With time being so powerful over our mortality, isn’t it such a blessing that God reveals Himself to be even more powerful over time? I would argue that although the present and future take up a large part of our concerns, it is often the past that drives our anxiety because we do not want the bad moments to find their way into impacting our limited future. Maybe you use the past as a growth opportunity or maybe you cannot seem to get over it. Regardless, its authority in our lives is undoubtedly influential.

What is truly beautiful is how God reveals Himself to be present in all 3 tenses, but it is the past that He uses to build our peace. The past is the only tense that will remain consistent. Nothing you do now or in the future will effect what has already happened.

Sound familiar? I am immediately reminded of the picture of God’s love. Because of what Jesus has done on the cross in the past, my present and future are covered in His grace because regardless of the changing seasons, His love was portrayed on Calvary and nothing I do can change what has already happened.

This my dear friend, is why reflecting on how you are left in awestruck wonder of God every single day is so critical to how you handle your future. As you force your eyes to seek God’s glory, regardless of your uncertain future and confusing present, you will still have a peace to abide in.

I don’t know if you caught it, but the quote from Nichols above is actually a statement in which she is aiming to discipline herself to, not a statement of how she naturally is. If you want to be at peace even when the next step in life is as foggy as can be, you need to steward your thoughts towards that which reminds you of the glory of God.

Waiting is hard. I am not going to pretend like it will be an exciting experience even after you build a God-glorifying mindset. But there will be a difference when you begin prioritizing a perspective reflecting God’s own. That invisible yet monumental feeling of being content in your present and hopeful in your future is captured in 5 little letters; peace. The peace of God is what allows us to focus on every moment and it’s great potential as anxiety bows and striving ceases.

I am sorry if you have been waiting for something for a long time. I really am, but acknowledging the burden of waiting on our own strength is the first step towards a peaceful freedom. So do not lose hope my friend because the faithfulness of the One you find your peace in has never and will never change. It is not temporary happiness nor numbing despair that will make your waiting season reveal it’s great purpose. I pray that the comfort of Christ meets you where you are in that long, long marathon so that the journey towards the finish line may become a part of the faithfulness you can look back on in the future.

Rest in His peace because He who promised is faithful indeed!