Are you annoyed and frustrated watching others around you live out their dream while you stand on the sidelines?

You see people thriving around you, doing what God has made them to do; they are running and seem like they are winning in life.

Meanwhile.. you feel like you are at a standstill or sitting down on the sidelines. This can be frustrating.

Questions can pour through your mind like a list:
– Why can’t I make progress towards my God-given dreams?
– Is something wrong with me?
– Am I in the wrong lane?
– What do I need to do?

Not only can you feel like you are letting God down by not going forth with the dreams He has planted in your heart, but you can feel like you are letting yourself down. Frustrated and pent up, you keep standing, waiting for your turn to play.

Can I suggest something to you?

This holding pattern might actually be precisely where God’s purpose is raining down on you.

But this rain is not a normal H2O rain; it is a spiritual rain where God is filling you up, training you, equipping you, and feeding you.

You might feel stagnant.

You might feel like you are not contributing anything good to society, but remember this:

The wilderness is often where God equips and empowers you for your next step.

– Bonnie Dorough

In this place, God can renew your mind, change how you think, heal your past, refresh your thoughts, and fill you up where you lack.

The questions that you hear in your mind might just be distracting lies that try to make you feel bad and less than you truly are.

So what are your desires? What has God planted in your heart to do? Can you see it? Personally, I want to be an author and a speaker. I know this in my core and to be honest, I want to write a large number of books. But not one is out yet. And that is okay.

As I have lived in Botswana for close to three years now, and I know my time here will come to a close in the next year, my brain has swirled around thinking—What good have I done? Of course I have done small things but nothing huge.

But I realized something that is even better and bigger than that question. What has God been doing in me while I stand on the sidelines watching others play?

Weeks ago, as I was cooking dinner, standing there in front of my stove, stirring rice, God spoke to my heart something that I had been wondering and asking for many long months —What is God doing in me? The words that I felt He gave me that day struck me so strongly:

I need you to feel like you are something, when you feel like you are nothing.

– God

It’s easy to feel like you are something when you are accomplishing great things visible by the world’s standards. When you have a title or a high position that the world agrees is something, it’s easier to feel good about yourself. These moments aren’t wrong. It is not wrong to achieve great things and status. I believe God elevates us in the right time and with joy.

But to let these moments tell us who we really are and what our value is—That is wrong.

God sees your value and your worth and is dramatically in love with you when you produce nothing, when you don’t perform and you feel almost useless.

• When you keep cooking dinner for the thousandth time and watch your little one throw it on the floor.
• When you break up your kids from fighting again and try to instill godly character, love, and forgiveness, and you wonder if they are getting it.
• When everyone around you is working in their gifting and desires and you seem them gleefully fulfilled, and you congratulate them.

And then you look at yourself, and tears follow soon after.

But it is during those times we must not look at ourselves but look straight into Jesus’ eyes and say –

I trust you and what you are doing in my life. I trust You. I may not get it and understand your timing, but I want you to have your way in me. Shake off of my old ideals, thoughts, and beliefs that are causing me to shrivel and not thrive. Take off of me all of the things that are harming me and not helping me.

Like a horse waiting in a stall as the owner lovingly washes off the mud that has been caked on and dried for years on its legs. So God brushes our hair and takes the old things off, and puts freshness on us.

As God loves on you, will you receive it?

Can we be content right here, waiting, and let God love on us and refill us before we go out there?

We need it. We so need it. We can’t do these dreams without Him. We won’t get very far.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

We need God’s power in our lives so much. We need him to sift through us and take all the splinters out. To love on us and renew us and pick us back up.

Right now God is doing a work in me, although I may not look like I am accomplishing much, I know He is renewing how I think. The negative thinking that I have been inundated with, He his teaching me new ways to think and thereby live. I need this. I need this to run better and faster. If I go out of this holding stall right now, I will trip over old habits.

So my heart is getting a makeover.

This time in Africa has been purposed and significant in my life.

I will say the same thing to you—Know that you are something right now! And it’s not because of what you are producing, it’s because of who you are—the reclaimed soul that God has adopted and is nurturing. He is our God and we are His people. Never alone.

Listen to His heart for you…

Stand still and know that I am God. Trust in me for I will not lead you wrong. I will deliver you and show my grace and mercy to you in every way. Release to me your cares as a habit, as a desperate need. In me you will find strength and be renewed. Look to me and stop trying to find it elsewhere. I am your source of Life, I promise you. Bring me your burdens and your cares; my arms are big enough to deal with them and hold you all at the same time. I am strong and able, and you will find your strength in me. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will gladly give you rest. Gladly. My heart is love for you. My intentions are good for you. And those dreams you have, I have even bigger ones that would thrill you. Partner with me. You are not alone so don’t walk alone. I am by your side all day. Lean on me, talk to me and I will give you rest.

May God bless the process you are in and remember – He is faithful!