Not the Right Time

A couple weeks ago, I asked the following question and here's my attempt to answer it.

"Have you ever wanted to do something to serve the Lord, only to realize you can't devote the necessary time because of your current responsibilities? How did you deal with this?" (Update: A fellow blogger provided a great answer to this question on his blog here.)

I've come to the realization that I can't do everything at once. As much as people today pride themselves in their ability to multitask, there are only so many projects you can be involved in at once.

There come times in life when we really think we should be serving God somewhere else, and we're very ready to do it. But when we look around at everything else we have on our plates we realize there may not be room. Sure if you made a sacrifice here or there, slept and hour or two less, and dropped this, it could work. It might for a week or a month until you're burnt out, feel disconnected from friends and family and you're left wondering what happened to your life.

There's often so much we feel like doing, but you always have to take your current responsibilities into consideration first. If you have a job or are still in school, you can't exactly put that on the back burner. If you're still living at home, you may have responsibilities there. Of course, you also want to stay in fellowship with believers to grow in your faith. When everything is tallied, there's only so much time to spare.

A couple years ago, I heard a young man teach a lesson on Ecclesiastes 3 and he brought out something so simple, yet so significant. "If there's a time for everything, now is not the time for everything." There's only so much you can do at once, and at some point you have to start saying no. Yes, there may be some great things you can get involved in and you may love to help other people out when they ask you, but sometimes you can't. Once you begin taking up so much, you can't put forth the necessary time and effort. As much as you want to help, you're being unfair to other people if you can't give a task your all.

Sometimes, God has us in a season of preparation that we can't forgo. As anxious as we are to move ahead and make a difference in the world, the timing isn't right. It's only in being faithful in the preparation season in our lives, that God can use us somewhere else later on. And very often, there's great importance in the seemingly insignificant time we presently find ourselves in. We just have to trust God in that.

So if there's something on your heart and it's not going to happen now, does that mean you have to let your dreams fall to the ground and die? Absolutely not! If God has put a desire in your heart, it will not go away, and God will fulfill it. If it's your own ambitions, you might have to let it go. So what do you do in the meantime?

Keep praying about it. God can make ways in the most impossible situations, so pray boldly and specifically. Seek out possible opportunities where you may be able to do what you desire and when you've found something you like, make your desires known. And in the midst of it all, keep praying and watch God work.