Why Wait

God gave me a little gift this morning.  I woke up an hour and a half early unable to go back to sleep.  I had so much anticipation the moment I opened my eyes.  It's as if I were traveling to Disney today. Normally I wouldn't look at this as a gift.  I like my sleep.  I like waking up at the same time.  I even like setting my alarm early just so I can hit snooze for the feeling that I've somehow cheated the day out of ten extra minutes of sleep.  I lay there, forcing my eyes shut just to notice a moment later that they are wide awake staring at the walls.  Why?

I blame Erwin McManus.  Last night in small group we discussed chapter two of the book Wide Awake.   So far, it has been about dreaming big so your life will be big and letting obstacles become springboards for a fresh start.  The author of this book is, you guessed it, Erwin McManus.

Now, even though the book has been about springing off into your dreams, God always has a similar but different lesson for me.  Last night I couldn't stop thinking about how much time I spent waiting.  My life is past the point of doing the same routine day-in and day-out.  One member of our small group shared that her big decisions for the day was what to make for dinner and what show to watch at night.  While I completely relate to that, God took it a bit farther.  I kind of examined the surface level of my typical week.  I found that I pretty much spend Monday through Friday waiting to live on the weekend.

There are many reasons for this.  I figure there is not enough time in a "normal" day to do anything extra. Or, I tell myself that I'm too tired.  Or, I say I'll do it Saturday so I won't add to the stress of my current day.

Well, I say...WHY WAIT???  Do I really want to spend 250 days of the year waiting to live the other 115?  That's 64% of my year waiting!  That's just ridiculous.  I will not let stress, tiredness, or daily frustrations dictate my zeal for life anymore.  Thank you God for revealing this to me!

Living everyday doesn't mean shirking responsibilities at work so I can go to the zoo and just spend the day watching the baboons.  (Yes, in my mind that would be a great way to spend a day.)  For me, it means to

do something today that I didn't do yesterday.  

For me, it's that simple.  I'm not going to make it hard.  Just do one thing different than yesterday.

So, when I woke up early today, instead of forcing myself back to sleep only to be jolted by my robot alarm ninety minutes later, I got up and blogged the first time since May. It's one of the things I've been putting off and waiting to do for a while.

No more waiting for life...I'm going to live it!