I’m a huge advocate of personal growth. In fact, I’m a junkie when it comes to books, articles, podcasts, conferences and anything that helps me to stretch and grow.

Anyone else?

While I call studying personal growth, I’ve also learned that growing usually comes in the doing. The going. The trying. The risking. At least that is where you can visibly measure your growth.

Yet, there is another place of growth that I’m learning about right now.

I’m a huge advocate of personal growth. In fact, I’m a junkie when it comes to books, articles, podcasts, conferences and anything that helps me to stretch and grow.

Anyone else?

While I call studying personal growth, I’ve also learned that growing usually comes in the doing. The going. The trying. The risking. At least that is where you can visibly measure your growth.

Yet, there is another place of growth that I’m learning about right now.

It’s not the well acquainted preparing or doing.

It’s waiting. The place between here and there. The place no one really wants to be or at least stay long. There is something so stretching about waiting. It’s uncomfortable, really. I know I talked about it last week. It must really materialize on Mondays. I know it does. Because Monday I want to get to it. I want to get to work. And instead I find myself circling. Circling around things I could do, should do, must do. Today, I’m trying not to fluster in the lack of focus, but to… you got it – grow in it.

Waiting, really, is a fine teacher, actually.

Waiting reveals. It reveals character. It reveals motives. It reveals intention. It reveals hopes. It reveals fears. It reveals commitment. It reveals maturity. And that is just a start. What I’m finding it is revealing in my life right now is trust. Waiting reveals trust or lack there of.

Do I trust the process? Do I trust the timing? And mostly, do I trust God?

As I typed these words I noticed the music beat in my earbuds and heard the words being sung….”Jesus I will trust you. I will trust you. I know you never fail; I will trust you.” Didn’t plan for the song but there it is. Computer to ears. Ears to heart.

It’s not that everything is on the line. Its that life has felt on hold for a few years. In the hold I chose to grow. Some of it was painful. Some of it came naturally. Some of it I had to fight for. All of it was hard work. I’m not done growing. I’ll never be. There is always room for growth. Things to learn.

So, today I learn from waiting. Tomorrow, doing may be my teacher? And in that moment I wonder if I’ll miss waiting or being in the hold? Probably.

Every season is for stretching and growing – if you want to grow. Preparing. Doing. Waiting. It’s just some seasons of growth we live out loud and some we hold quietly within. Whatever season you find yourself in, I encourage you to stretch and embrace growth. The season you are in now is connected to the next. For the things you learn today are not just for today. They are also very much for tomorrow. So lets grow. In the preparing, in the doing, in the waiting. Lets stretch and grow.

 

image/ figtny