By Ife J. Ibitayo
I went back to school to start a business. Boom or bust, by the time I walk out of my two-year MBA program, I will add “founder” to my resume. With such a short window to work with, time is of the essence. I am currently looking for a co-founder, and I have no idea how to find them.
During orientation, I met a fellow entrepreneurial student. Over the course of our conversation, I found out that he too had been looking for a co-founder, and he’d already found him a few days ago. He said, “With us only being here two years, every minute counts. And we’ll need every second of it to take advantage of the resources here.” In my head, I paraphrased that as, “I’m already behind!”
Walking Not Running
My instinctual reaction was to find a way to get ahead. I need to find a co-founder, create a business juggernaut, and commence a transition plan for my impending retirement all by next week, or I might never catch up! As ridiculous as this might sound, I think this mindset has become more prevalent than we may realize. Why else would the term “life hack” have so inundated popular discourse? We’re constantly trying to find ways to squeeze more useful time out of our twenty-four hour days.
But God’s pace is slower. When speaking of God’s plan for our lives, the apostle Paul said, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). And in the book Three Mile An Hour God, Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama emphasized that Jesus’ pace on earth was a walking pace because love can’t be rushed.
But why is God so freaking slow?
Timing Belongs to the LORD
This question led me to the story of Moses. Everyone knows Moses: nation deliverer, Red Sea splitter, leader, prophet, warrior, poet, and writer. But what most people don’t realize is that Moses completed all of these great acts as an old man. His journey begins when most of ours end: at the age of eighty.
For the first forty years of his life, Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s household. The book of Acts says, “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). These two statements “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” and “was powerful in speech and action” are inseparable. Moses’ formative upbringing was inseparable from his legacy.
After this, Moses—like most of us—attempted to start his mission too early. As a middle-aged man of forty, he attempted to liberate his people (Acts 7:23). But the LORD still had much training for him to undergo. So he spent the next forty years of his life as a shepherd in the wilderness. What better way to learn how to lead a stubborn, ignorant, ungrateful people than to lead stubborn, ignorant, ungrateful sheep!
Because the LORD sees the end from the beginning, He knows what steps we need to take along the way. We can’t short circuit this process without short circuiting our destiny.
The Future Belongs to the LORD
Similarly, we don’t know what the future holds. King Solomon once said, “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). There are so many factors that go into success that we, with our limited perspective, will fail to account for: the economy, the culture, even our own mental readiness and state of well being. But God takes all of these into account. And He makes all things beautiful in their own time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Conclusion
So I have let go of my timetable; I’ve deleted my calendar; and I’ve tossed my planner into the bin. I will still plan ahead, of course, but I’m trying to learn to clutch my schedule with a looser grip. My vision may not come true according to my plan, but God has always had a better one in store.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”
(Jeremiah 29:11)