So often I rush the future.

For instance, when I was in middle school, Facebook was the new big thing. Everyone of my friends were getting an account and they constantly chattered about it at school.

I wasn’t allowed to have a Facebook.

I begged and begged and begged my mom to relent, but she wouldn’t budge. The thirteen year old me could not understand why everyone else was allowed to have a Facebook, and I wasn’t. If I could just have a Facebook, my life would be complete!

For my fourteenth birthday, my mom surprised me and let me sign up for an account. I scurried to the computer and quickly typed in my information. Adding my first profile picture, I couldn’t believe it- I finally had a Facebook.

I was on the website all the time… but as time passed, it lost its “coolness factor.” I started to check Facebook only to see if I had notifications, and then would turn it off. Today, I only use Facebook to post pictures (for my not-on-Instagram friends), for Facebook blog groups, and to update the Joy Because Grace Facebook page.

Something that I used to long for desperately has now become just another app.

I wan’t allowed to have a cell phone either.

Once again, it seemed like all of my friends had one, and I was the one left out. In fact, my mom would claim that I would be the last one in my grade to get a cell phone. Thanks mom. 

I begged.
I made rational arguments.
I pointed out that if Kevin from Home Alone had a cell phone, his whole family would have been spared from a very traumatic event. (So what if cell phones didn’t exist back then? It’s the principle of the thing…)

If I could just have a cell phone, my life would be complete.

On my sixteenth birthday, my parents surprised me once again by giving me a cell phone. It wasn’t a smart phone, and it couldn’t connect to the internet, but it could call and it could text.

{Looking back though, I’m really glad that I DIDN’T have a phone in middle school/ early high school. I think it would have caused a whole bunch of unnecessary drama.}

The waiting. The discontentment. The rush.

“I can’t wait to get my driver’s license!”
“I can’t wait for summer!”
“I can’t wait to graduate high school!”
“I can’t wait to have a boyfriend!”
“I can’t wait to have a real job!”
“I can’t wait to be married!”
“I can’t wait to have kids!”

I’m addicted to rushing the future. I focus so much on what I don’t have, I forget to be grateful for what I do have.

I’ve come to realize that when I’m living in the future, I forget about my current blessings. God has placed me here in this season of my life for a reason.
And if I rush the future and am anxious for the next big thing to come, then I miss out on the HERE AND NOW.

The coming season will be great. But I don’t want the next season to come just for me to realize that I missed out on the blessings of yesteryear.

Related: How to Endure a Season of Waiting

I’m learning to be content.

I’m learning to find blessings in this season of life, and forget about what I have yet to achieve.

Because longing for a Facebook, longing for a phone, longing for a car, a job, a diploma, a boy- all of that longing is really just lust and greed. And it turns the objects of my longing into idols.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be known as an idolater.

I don’t want to bow down to anything other than my Savior.

So if I long for anything, may I long for the return of Jesus!

But as I wait, may I wait well.

May I be aware of my current blessings, and take notice of the people around me who need help right now. 

May I not pass up opportunities of today for the hope of something better tomorrow.

And may I learn to live in contentment

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Posted by Kara Beth & filed under Devotionals. This post has 5 comments.