“Soon” And “Are You Ready?”

Lessons from my own life...

"Soon"

For many many years The Lord said "soon" to me as a response to prayers in a specific area of my life. And when I say many years, I mean over a decade. A decade of waiting for "soon" to be "today".

The thing is, that during that season of waiting for "soon" I would learn patience. And understand the The Lord's universe better through his perspective, instead of through my perspective. The passage of time is an interesting thing when you stop thinking about your life through the lens of "today" and instead think of your life through the lens of "my entire life from birth to death".

And then, when I finally understood what the answer "soon" meant...

I should note that "soon" did not mean what I originally thought it meant. I had to learn what The Lord was talking about, not what I wanted him to be talking about that was "soon"... But I digress...

So moving forward, after the "soon" came a new word from The Lord. And for the last couple of years he has asked me a question instead of making a statement.

"Are you ready?"

Now this one is ongoing, and continues to expand my awareness and understanding. So I don't have good ways to share about this one yet. And honestly it's like an onion. And as we all know from Shrek, onions have layers. And I am definitely peeling back the layers of this and learning a great many things.

But both of these have been teaching (present tense of the word, because it's a lifelong process) me about how He communicates and works in my life. You see both of these are open ended and not explicit. They are not clear like saying “turn left at the tree” or “things will change on March 2nd...”. Those are concrete statements. But answers like “this is good” are open ended.

Of course our natural inclination is to assume he is referring to what we desperately want him to be referring to... And I am absolutely guilty of doing that a bazillion times in my life. But that's not usually the case.

I am learning that those vague, open ended responses are less about answering my prayers. Note: They are answering my prayers but I am not wise enough to understand how it answers my prayers at the time. And these answers are more about teaching me more about Him, more about the world, and more about where The Lord is directing my life.

So don't fret, don't freak out, don't let the anxiety over take you. It's a journey with a purpose. Enjoy the ride and learn some amazing things along the way!