Particularly Epic Twenties

My friend Brittany and I have spent a lot of time talking about what the heck it means to rest in a season of uncertainty and waiting. We are both jobless, aside from part time work here and there, and both kind of going, "Heyyyy, Gooood?"

We both are in a place of waiting. A place of being and not doing, which for our personality types is like being confined to a tiny yard in the middle of the Grand Canyon. Frustrating beyond belief.

Guess who else didn't do anything particularly epic in his twenties?

Jesus spent thirty of his thirty-three years of life chilling and learning and growing. Did people ever look at Jesus in his twenties and wonder what the heck he was doing? He knew what was coming, but they definitely didn't. They might have just seen a twenty-something bro spending way too much time at the synagogue. And maybe they whispered about it.

I wonder if Jesus ever questioned his Father in those years before his ministry began. Was he ever like, "Hey, dude, what's going on here? I have a world to save, shouldn't we be doing something about that?"

(SIDE NOTE: I'm not trying to make the Savior of the universe sound irreverent. But if he was fully human he must've had moments of doubt at one point or another.)

I'm sure, if Jesus ever did ask such a question, the Father responded with something like this:

Dude, chill. I don't need you to do anything right now. I need you to become something. I need you to wait and let the seeds I've planted in you grow. There is such greatness there. I am so excited to see the fruit explode out of you! But it's not time yet. So just rest.

My fellow millennials and I are a generation of instant gratification. Which I think feeds into this intense desire we have to DO COOL SHIT in our twenties (emphasis added to communicate intensity of desire.) And maybe Jesus did, too. But he heeded the gentle voice of his Father, who was saying, Wait. Don't rush. Rest.

Jesus didn't do a dang thing to fulfill his life's purpose until he was thirty. But there is no doubt that he lived his life to the absolute fullest, and that he walked step by step with the Father. He didn't miss anything. His twenties were not wasted. That decade was a season of becoming.

So maybe I won't be married and write a best-seller and cure world hunger by the time I'm twenty-five (which is nineteen days from now, if anyone was wondering). I'm learning to be okay with that. Maybe my twenties are a season of becoming. For heaven's sake, it's not like I'm running out of time. Statistically speaking my life isn't even half over yet. And as much as I want to impress everyone I know with HOW TOGETHER I AM and HOW SUCCESSFUL MY LIFE IS, I'm learning to acknowledge the voice that is saying, Your dreams are my dreams, sweet girl. But don't rush. Wait for me.

If waiting and becoming, instead of rushing and doing, will make the end result vastly greater than I could ever ask or imagine (spoiler alert, it will), then I can wait. I want to wait. But it won't be a lazy waiting. It will be waiting on one dream while a thousand others are realized. God is not inactive or complacent. If He's asking you to wait, it's only because He wants to grow you and teach you and prepare you. And the growing, teaching and preparation will be anything but boring.

So cheers to a season of being, not doing. May it better equip us for the moment He says, This is it, kid. This is your moment. Go do what I made you to do.