Does your season feel like a waste?

What a waste! Of time, money, talent, resources, situation, vacation days.

I took off one Friday from work to stay home and participate in an online Christian writer’s conference. I was very excited and hoped it would inspire me with something great to write about here.

But it wasn’t great, and after the first day of sessions I didn’t connect with, I was kind of bored. Why had I felt God leading me to sign up and pay for such a useless conference? Shouldn’t he be filling me up with all the tools and ideas that he wants me to share? I mean, I was doing this for God, so shouldn’t he bless that time?

What do you do when it feels like God led you down the wrong path? Did you hear him wrong? Did God lead you to something bad? Why would he make you waste good time and money?

I think most of us have some issues with control. We plan our days and hours and hate wasting precious moments with something that doesn’t matter. We can put up with small inconveniences that we didn’t expect like a long line at the store, but when it feels like God told you to do something kind of big and it doesn’t work out, then what?

Maybe He’s blessing you in a different way than you planned.

I really needed that day off. God knew months in advance that that was going to be a stressful time at work for me and that only something I already paid for would get me to take that day off for myself. I may not have gotten from it what I expected, but God gave me a simple day on my apartment balcony in the summer sun. I had my laptop but absolutely no commitments or rules or deadlines. God just wanted to be with me. No agenda or grand lesson that day, just presence. 

God sees you and what you need. He is for you and is with you.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:28-31

'“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
Psalm 34: 1-4, 8

Maybe you’re getting a different lesson than you thought. 

When I signed up for the conference, I expected God to give me writer tips and tricks to better communicate in these blog posts. Instead God worked on me personally so I could later write from a better place. Still the same amount of knowledge and skill but with a heart that is constantly being molded to God’s will instead of my own carefully controlled plans. 

In a short but favorite Bible story, Martha learned this lesson directly from Jesus. He was visiting Martha’s home, and she was busy getting things ready, but her sister Mary wasn’t even helping her with the food prep. She was sitting just chatting with Jesus while Martha did the work. Martha wanted to do her best for God over being with God. (Luke 10:38-42) 

Maybe he’s leading you step by step to pivot because you wouldn’t listen if he just asked you to turn completely around.

We can be so stubborn and think we know best. If God showed us his end plan, a lot of us wouldn’t follow. It’d make no sense and we wouldn’t trust that path. So maybe God is using baby steps of change to lead you down a different path.

It’s similar to when God led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt:

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.”...

“By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.” Exodus 13:17-18, 21-22

The Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert and didn’t really go anywhere or accomplish anything. But they were following God- the pillar of cloud by day or fire by night- such an amazing visual presence! 

If God just told the people that they’d camp in one place for 40 years and do nothing, I bet many of them would have went back to slavery in Egypt, convinced God had made a mistake. We certainly see them grumble enough through their wandering, but because God was still before and behind them, they stayed. 

What may have seemed like a waste of time was really the continuous redemption of God’s people for generations to come. They had to face the consequences of their sin and did not enter the promised land themselves, but all of history changed because they followed God out of Egypt one step at a time. 

How are you following God in small steps of obedience? Are you complaining or feeling restless? Does your season feel like a waste?

I’m sure all of 2020 feels like a waste to most of us!

But it’s only wasted if you’re not learning from it. See the good, because where God is, there is good to be found. We may be in a hard lesson or not even live to see the end God is working out in this story, but he has good plans for his people even when we can’t see what they are. And some plans are still being continued thousands of years later.

Isaiah prophesied that one day some Egyptians would know the Lord, and so would some Assyrians (other enemies), and that they would worship God together with Israelites! (Isaiah 19:18-25) If God had told them that while they were slaves, they wouldn’t have believed him, and likely wouldn’t have wanted God to save their enemies.

What a blessing it is that God only reveals to us part of his plans sometimes!

“People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
Isaiah 30:19-21