So often we come to a point in life that we feel a deep need for transition. You know the feeling. It just seems like you’re spinning your wheels and not gaining ground. You feel ready for a new direction, purpose or vision to grab ahold of, or to grab ahold of you, to get you going on in life. You may even be at the point that you say to yourself that you are ready for anything that has more meaning or purpose. You might even pray; telling God that you are ready to go and do whatever He has for you. “I’m ready, just say go and I’m there!”
Unfortunately, sometimes we miss what needs to happen before we can truly move on. In this place is where we need to sort through the restless anxiety and assess if we are truly ready for the next great adventure in our life. I have found that many times in life I’m so ready for a change, something new, purposeful and significant, but in reality I may have been very willing, but not yet ready.
Some time ago I was very restless, feeling like I was not accomplishing all that God wanted me to do. Even though, we may never reach the fullness of what we should be doing, I was feeling trapped in a state of funk. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy times of comfort and stability, but not for very long, because I begin to feel stagnant and stale. You know the saying “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I was “afflicted” and I prayed night after night for God to show me what I needed to pursue and let him know I was ready to go and do whatever that might be. I will sell whatever I needed to sell and make whatever transition that needed to be made.
After much prayer and struggling to come to terms with my state of existence, I asked myself, “If I was to sell my house, am I ready? If a buyer came to the door today, was I really ready?” Well, back then the answer was, “No way!” It would have been poor judgment to try to sell the house until we got it ready. It was newly built, but had no landscaping, the garage was a disaster zone, pantry in disarray, many closets overloaded and the study was a storage unit. Needless to say, I began to realize that I may have been willing to do anything, but I was not ready. This motivated me to make a list of what needed to be done to be ready to sell the house, if need be.
One by one, we knocked off each thing on our list over a few months until one day, as I was heading out to the office, I looked around the house and said to my wife, “the house looks ready” and she nodded back in agreement. Well, just to show you how God pays attention and cares about the details in our lives, I get a call later that very day from a realtor that drove in the neighborhood and asked me if we are selling our house because they have a client interested in seeing it. I wasn’t sure if it was a joke, but this realtor doesn’t really joke much. So I called my wife to tell her that a realtor was on the way to show the house to her client. Of course, my wife thought I was messing with her.
Obviously, house maintenance is not as important as soul maintenance, but most times practical issues in our daily lives are a reflection of what’s going on inside. So I continued to make plans for all the areas in my life of what I need to do in order to be ready for anything that God brings my way. This action plan included things such as, our budget and finances, balance in our family relationships, adjustments in our businesses, and most importantly, deeper spiritual devotion to God. I don’t think we ever “arrive” to the very end of our journey on this earth, but I truly feel I understand the difference between just being willing, and being ready for the next great adventure!
