My wife totally dislikes queues. She also really dislikes processes. She dislikes them so much we nearly missed an overseas trip because she couldn’t bear the thought of going to the Passport place and queuing for a whole morning to get hers. Being the amazing husband that I am, I went with her, sat through all her grumbling in the waiting lounge, yelled on her behalf when the lady across the counter was being ridiculous, and thankfully we got the Passport on time.

But what she is has nothing on my own impatience. See, i’m an achiever, so going through the pain and rigour of the process doesn’t faze me much if the goal remains clear. My issue rather comes in Waiting for seasons to pass, and more specifically seasons in what I consider to be a valley. But it gets worse, if i’m in a mountainous Season, where things are great and i’m on top of the world, I can’t wait to get it over and done with so I can get to the next Peak. I told you, i’m worse.

The bane of an Achiever personality is that good is never good enough, and great never comes soon enough. It’s a nightmare really. The concept of gratitude, and sitting in the place of small and big achievements, soaking in the praise and patting myself in the back has been foreign for most of my life, and i’m only just learning it. Think about it, Rest is a function of gratitude. It’s very hard to rest if you don’t believe you deserve it, or you have earned it. Achievers consider rest to be Anathema. It takes extreme fatigue, medical conditions, or (in the case of one super achiever I know) the risk of losing treasured relationships life a wife, children etc for them to agree to slow down and rest. And because Humans are wired with a Herd mentality, we surround ourselves with people like us. So if everyone around me is an achiever, hitting milestone after milestone, then the wisdom to know that Rest is not only doctrinal, but also mission critical will not show up on my path. And so I keep going, until I can’t anymore.

I’m in an interesting, and very frustrating Season right now. I’ve called it the Season of expansion. The reason for this is because i’ve felt that God is pushing me to expand in a number of ways, the biggest of which being the area of Waiting Things Out. I’ve worked for the same employer for nearly 7 years, the longest i’ve ever done anywhere by far. And every time I have wanted to transition or thought it was time, God would come down so strongly, telling me to Stay Put. Super frustrating, but also humbling. He has also been expanding me to learn how to walk with others. That Chinese saying, ‘Go fast alone, or Go far with others’ rings so loud for me right now. I’ve gone at lightning speed before, straight off a cliff. Thankfully I didn’t plummet to my death, but I broke a few bones. And God says, it’s time to walk with others, to Wait on others, because if you do so, then what I have called you to Build will last beyond you.

Lastly, expansion in Stillness. I have a leadership coach who repeatedly talks about Being vs Doing. A balanced life requires that you have a healthy dose of these two aspects. Stillness means rest, means meditation, means a walk in the park (without your phone), means a mindfulness exercise, means Prayer, means a Worship experience, means a meaningful Conversation with a loved one. That’s Being. Doing is what most of us are so good at, moving from one thing to the next, never quite questioning why we are doing those things in the first place. And as if to make his point, God has been sending my way a lot of content about people in their old age talking about how they wish they did a lot more of the things above in their younger, more vibrant days. I’m trying to listen to the Wisdom of the season, though i’m not always successful.

So i’m praying for Grace to embrace Waiting, because Season build upon Seasons, and you can’t shorten a Season, no matter how ambitious you think you are. You can shortcut a Season though, but it comes back to bite you where it hurts most. True Story.