This generation—we’re all on a train, really. The conductor on the intercom said the next stop is Destiny . . . but mile after aimless mile meander by the window, and the passing grass looks browner every minute. Well, while we’re both seated here, let’s talk.
Okay, barista, I know working at Starbucks is not what you want to do for 30 years of your life. You’d quit brewing now if you had another month’s rent in savings. You’re just trying to make ends meet so your career in painting can get off the ground, or maybe, ever since 2010 you’ve dreamed of building hospitals and schools in Haiti. Still, I feel you. I don’t judge.
You brewed a tall Passion Tea (with no sugar) for me. You also bagged my groceries at the organic grocery store. You helped me move to my new apartment with a neon green sweatband. You are one of the many millennials trying to make ends meet. You don’t want to compromise on your dreams, but you know there aren’t enough people to buy your sculptures or read your books to support the career you really want.
Honestly, being a schoolteacher is not what I want to do for 30 years, either. My North Star moment was God telling me children was to be my occupation. I don’t doubt that, but the path is not so clear cut as I once thought. Nearly two years into it, I’m planning to complete my commitments for this school year and quit to do some international missions next year. After the first year, I didn’t pass judgment on my job. I knew the first year of teaching is difficult for anyone, and with the changes and growing pains my school went through, it was crazy.
What about you? Now I’m still young and mostly foolish, but I’ve learned a few things about the process that might can help. Like Randall Worley said, “What’s happening in us while we wait is more important than what we are waiting on.”
I have dreams of serving children. I have dreams of building schools. I have dreams of discipling nations. I have dreams of seeing people miraculously saved, healed, and delivered. I feel like I’m seeing none of that during my current occupation, but I want to introduce a new concept, that I am walking in my destiny, even now. I invite you to make a tweak in the way that you talk about yourself. I want you to go ahead and start saying that you are walking in your destiny right now.
Okay, I understand you’re just a barista at Starbucks right now, and God has told you that you’re going to turn the nation of Haiti upside down. Think, though, that God is with you even as he refines you. What is happening inside you is more important than what is happening in your circumstances. The preparations, changes, refinements, and faith in the Lord is building in you right now are the exact quality that will allow you to turn the nation of Haiti upside down. In that, you are walking in your destiny today. Without the struggle and the building of character—without the digging of a deep foundation—you would not be able to grasp and succeed in your destiny.
A motivational speaker once told Craig Groschel, “Young church pastors are all alike. They think too big in the short-term and too small in the long term.” I submit you’re doing the same thing. You are thinking too big right now and too small for your future. You won’t see the dead raised today, and you won’t write a New York Times bestseller tomorrow, but I beg you, never underestimate the power of a submitted, patient life. I know this because I know the power of process.
You’re on the right train, friend. Stay with me on it a bit longer.