YouTube contains several videos of police and firefighters freeing children who got their head stuck in a railing. Sometimes rescuers could pry the rails apart with a metal bar; other times, they had to use jaws of life. In each case, the child would have been stuck forever if not for a powerful intervention.
Do you ever feel stuck? Trapped in a season of life you can’t move past? Mired in the not-yet?
I want to park on the not-yet for a few moments.
That season can seem interminably long. Burdens can feel greater than grace.
That sets us up to “coast.”
We may think about praying without doing it. Tacitly demote study and worship to checklist items. God becomes utilitarian like a toothbrush—set off to the side until needed, picked up as necessary for a limited conversation. But we avoid going deep with Him for fear we won’t be able to handle what He has to say to us.
Why? Because coasting is a protective instinct, a conservation of energy and effort to survive that undefined season of not-yet. We rationalize that coasting will boost our endurance so we’ll have some to spare for life’s next unexpected twist.
Long periods of not-yet can also saddle us with an unspoken fear. What if this lasts longer than I can bear—or worse yet, turns into crushing hardship?
In the not-yet, nothing seems to change. Broken relationships aren’t mended. Financial hardship doesn’t resolve. Poor health fails to improve. Tedious jobs don’t become fulfilling.
The not-yet can make us feel unloved, unseen, unappreciated, and unprotected. We innately want the opposite.
We ache to move past interminable not-yet’s. The apparently endless “diaper duty” months or years of feeling like we’re treading water in unfruitful repetitiveness—whatever form that assumes.
The problem is, if we try to force something other than where God wants us right now, it won’t bear fruit. Ruth Chou Simons said, “We simply cannot measure the success of our right-now season without taking into consideration the not-yet-fully-revealed plans God has for us.”
True. But that wisdom doesn’t insulate us from wearying of the not-yet. We yearn for our right-now to morph into something wonderful and purposeful. Something bigger and better. Something we envision we are meant to do.
Instead, the not-yet fences us in.
We tire of its limitations. We want a roadmap through the not-yet. A plan that proves tomorrow still holds promise for us.
But a map isn’t trust. It’s a calculation. A route we can understand. God operates in our obedience, not in our understanding. He lights the next step of our path—not the entire highway. Maybe He’ll grant us understanding later. Maybe not until we’re beyond this side of heaven.
Friends, I can say this in love because I’ve lived through two decades of not-yet while battling a near-fatal illness, divorce, isolation, financial insecurity, and more. Sometimes the not-yet is more than dull. It can be scary ugly.
A popular paraphrase from one of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons says, “God is too good to be unkind and too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.”
I love that.
Praise God He gives us examples of this in His Word. My favorite is that of Mnason. Never heard of him? His story is encapsulated in Acts 21:16. One verse. That’s it. But wrapped in that verse is his lifetime of faithfulness while waiting in the wings—until God uniquely positions him to minister to Paul. I have a whole blog dedicated to Mnason. It’s titled “When Doing Right Gets Old.” (Can you relate?)
During your not-yet, you can trust that God is still working for you, in you, through you, and sometimes in spite of you.
Still, you may not feel thankful for much. During the hardest months of my life, all I could thank God for was His character. Who He is. That alone is worthy of all praise—for God inhabits praise.
Our infinite God cannot be contained in our finite mind. Yet He can and will use every simple act of faithfulness to bear fruit into our life. In God’s economy, growth doesn’t need blooms to validate its presence. What God does with our not-yet may not pan out as we’d expect, but He will look upon His work in us and declare it is exceedingly good (Genesis 1:31).
Holy Father, thank You that You know what’s best for me! Open my eyes to sense Your purposes in all the not-yet of my life. Change my perspective. Rouse me from passive waiting to active stewarding and sowing. Give me joy to be whatever You want me to be in this season. Thank You that You turn even my not-yet seasons into growing seasons. Help me to rest in that certainty. Thank you for being faithful when I am not. Move me to draw near to You with a sincere heart and the assurance that faith brings (Hebrews 10:22). Amen.
Have you weathered a lengthy not-yet in your life? Are you still in it? What has helped you the most through it? Share your thoughts in the comments so they can encourage others!
I have indeed experienced several not-yet times in my life. Some of them were of God’s making, but the majority were self-generated. God has an unerring ability to put us exactly where we are supposed to be at exactly the right time, but he doesn’t force us to see what he wants us to see or feel what he wants us to feel. That is the power, or the weakness, that he has granted us. Through long experience, I have come to believe that it a major purpose of our being that we learn to see. So when a new not-yet time appears, the first thing that I try to do is to look from a different perspective. Sometimes it works and I find a new understanding. Sometimes I fail and and am left to wonder. It is, after all, a learning thing, but the successes remind me of the possibilities and they feed my confidence that the answers do exist. Patience is key to faith.
Great insights, Tim! Thanks for sharing those words of wisdom.