“If we can not embrace the boredom of life and the days of nothing, then we will never know how to mine the deepest desires of our hearts. We will always walk towards activity and what appears to be work or business because we do not embrace the restlessness of nothing. God does much with little. Unbelief is always urgent.”
–Andy Mineo via Instagram
Our world has very concrete markers of what “success” and being productive looks like. If you’re anything like me, you think a lot about your future, who you will be and if you’re keeping up. After I finished graduate school, I faced a lot of unknowns and wished God would audibly instruct me on what to do with my life. You may have guessed it—He didn’t. So I spent 3 months “doing nothing.”
My natural instinct isn’t to rest or wait. I want to do something, anything. I feel like those days are wasted. I want to fast forward to the parts that are polished and put together. I have a hard time believing that there are miracles in the mundane.
Those 3 months were spent applying for countless jobs and being met by deafening silence. Annoyance grew as God’s pacing often feels extremely slow and I questioned God’s goodness to me.
In the midst of the waiting, here’s what I learned:
- God is more interested in making me whole/holy than giving me stuff, positions, titles.
- God is more interested in changing my mind than changing my circumstance.
- God is more interested in my character than my comfort.
In the end, God opened the right doors and answered those questions. But it became clear that life is less about the doing and more about who we’re becoming. We’re going to spend our entire lives being shaped into the likeness of Jesus, and where we work, what we study etc., is secondary.
It’s challenging and I feel like I have to re-learn this daily. But God is so kind and wants the best for us (Jer. 29:11, Eph. 2:10). He is trustworthy.
Written by: Josepha Mbouma
- 3 Simple Joys:
- Seeing a beautiful sunset/sunrise
- Finding something cool when thrifting
- Helping people
- 2 Hobbies:
- Gardening (proud plant mom)
- Reading
- 1 Favorite Passage:
- The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
