Don't Wait

What are you waiting for? Ever heard this before??

Usually we ask this question implying that someone should hurry up and do something already.?

I had an old football coach who would say this all the time. He had his own version of the 7-deadly-sins on the football field, and one of them was indecisiveness. “If you’re going to screw up, screw up fast! Hit the hole! Shoot the gap! Just do something!”

He had a point. He would show us on tape how often someone knew what the right thing to do was but didn’t execute because they were indecisive.?

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m going through my reads to see if I should shoot to the flat or fill my run gap.”

“And what did you determine?”

“That I needed to fill my run gap.”

“Did you fill your run gap?”

“No, I didn’t make it in time.”

“Because you’re sitting there trying to decide what to do, rather than doing something! Maybe if you were at least sprinting to the flat you could have got in the way of a blocking lane. But you’re doing nothing by just standing there!”

To be clear, Coach was not trying to say that we should ignore our reads. He was definitely not a proponent of us just doing whatever the heck we wanted. But he wanted our reads to help us play faster, not to slow us down.

There was really a quite profound lesson in this. When we’re decisive, even if we’re decisively wrong, it can bring us closer to being right. But we don’t get anywhere by being indecisive.

This happens so much in our spiritual lives. There are so many different religious perspectives, so many different philosophies, so many personal experiences, how can I navigate through all of this and come to a decisive conclusion? How can I actually commit my life to one of these?

Like Coach, I’d say all of those reads are important but it's better to run full speed towards the wrong one than to sit around your whole life without ever making a decisive decision in any direction. Christ Himself says that to be “lukewarm” is worse than being “hot” or “cold.”

And when we read the Gospel today, this seems to be Christ’s rebuke of the Pharisees. In Christ’s time, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes, are all vying for their different ideas of what the Kingdom of God will be like. But it seems that Christ is saying, while you all are arguing and maybe devoting your external lives to preparation for what is to come, you are missing what is right in front of you. The Kingdom of God is among you!

And is this not true for us as well? We spend so much time deliberating about things, both big and small, that we fail to decisively give ourselves over to the biggest reality of all, the reality of God present to us in this moment.

Or we stay in a permanent state of distraction indefinitely delaying any deliberation or decision. We make the little things into big things and we ignore facing the big things. The devil helps us believe this is us being “practical”, because his gig is up if we realize that the big questions have more practical implications in our lives than the little day-to-day details.

Christ is not calling us to be inattentive to the day-to-day details of our lives, but to see the big things in the little things. Rather than seeing life as a to-do list, a set of problems to overcome, or a never-ending grind, He invites us to view each moment as our unique opportunity to help participate in the Kingdom of God.

Yes, there is a Kingdom to come, but there is also a Kingdom right here and right now, a Kingdom of peace. The peace of Christ is made available to all of those who will welcome it, but we can only welcome it by humbling ourselves continually and recognizing our dire need for it.?

Many stay in a state of discouragement because they have believed the lie of the devil that this type of peace is unattainable. When they are agitated or anxious, the devil tells them “it’s ok, everyone is like this!” Though this seems like a positive affirmation, it is another one of the devil’s subtle tricks.

If everyone is really agitated or anxious, then there is no hope for peace. Those who seem to be at peace are merely faking. But when we can accept that there have been some and there are some now who have acquired much deeper levels of peace than us, a seed of Hope is born.

The problem is for some there may be an initial hurt in realizing some are further along than them, so they sacrifice all of their Hope to save themselves a little bit of hurt. Again, this is the craftiness of the devil. But Hope does not hurt, it heals.?

There is a line at the end of the litany of humility that says, “That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should.” As usual, it has remarkable balance. It recognizes the goodness in desiring that others become holier than us without letting one “off the hook” of growing in holiness themselves.

The more I prayed with this I’ve realized that it is also because growth in holiness would not be possible without the guidance of those who were holier. The ways of holiness are so contrary to the ways of the world that one needs someone who has walked these ways to guide them along the path.

The spiritual journey is a never-ending one and requires many guides. It is a worthwhile journey, though. It humbles us, and sometimes that hurts, but the good kind of hurt. The way it hurts when you’re sore after working out. Your soul is ripped up a bit so it can grow back stronger.?

And the most important step on this journey is the first one. In fact, sometimes it feels that every step on the journey is the first one.

So, what are we waiting for??

We should run to Him as fast as we can, embrace Him with our entire hearts, entrust Him with our whole lives. We may occasionally “shoot the wrong gap” but if we are running to Him, He will help correct our course. What is most important is that we commit to making the Kingdom of God our first and foremost desire now.

Decisiveness in the spiritual life is not so much about doing something versus nothing, but about loving Someone rather than no one, trusting God rather than being perpetually suspicious, and knowing that all will be well for those who love and trust in this way.

It is about worshiping God, however clumsily one’s worship may be. By offering Him our praise and thanksgiving with our current ability to praise and give thanks, He will increase our capacity for both and illuminate our minds and hearts with a richer understanding of Him. He will enter into a living, dynamic relationship with us.

We will never again be waiting, but we will always be growing. We will make mistakes, but we will experience grace. We will suffer, but He will enter our suffering with us. As the saying goes, “you’re not following if you’re not close enough to the Cross to get a splinter.”

We don’t need all the answers. But we do need one decisive answer. That is answering “Yes” to Christ’s call to follow Him today.