Reflection:  Have you ever felt like you’re in a holding pattern? Like you’re waiting for your “real” life to start – or restart?

The first time this passage really lit up for me, I was in the middle of a gruelling period of job-hunting, unsure of what I might be doing or where I might be living in one or two or six months. What can you commit to – what can you invest in – when the future is so uncertain?

But these verses made it very clear: the future is always uncertain. There is so much we don’t know or understand. Yet our circumstances are not an accident, and there is no such thing as limbo. There is always something for us to invest our time and energies in here and now, where we find ourselves. We do not know the future, but God gives us plenty to do in the present.

Question:  Are you waiting for something to start or stop before you can live your “proper” life? What good can you be doing right now?

Prayer:  Lord God, Maker of all things, you alone know what’s coming in the weeks and years ahead. Grant me peace in uncertainty, and the hope needed to apply myself diligently to the tasks you set before me here and now. Amen.