Growing up, when I envisioned the road to success, I naively neglected the ingredients of timing and patience. I used to feel crushed under the pressure to be successful, even though I didn't even have a clear picture of what I thought success would look like. I was dead wrong in assuming that I needed to do everything perfectly right out of college. If I had clear goals, I still would have expected that I should achieve them right away or else, having failed, give up on them for something else. I now understand that committing to living well is more important than achieving a specific goal and actually more likely to bring me success. The words, "not right now," had the power to loosen the stranglehold of anxiety. Trusting timing and choosing patience are possible and sometimes even exciting because I believe God is working on my behalf in unseen ways. It's wonderful to no longer bear the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Life makes more sense when I factor timing back in to it. In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo teaches that every item must be assigned a home, a place it belongs, and no true tidying can happen without this. Though material things have their homes in physical locations, relationships, situations, and mindsets may belong in temporal places instead. Life is long as well as deep and wide, so it can hold these sequentially as well as concurrently. A life may be rich and full without having everything good happen at the same time, the whole time.
Sometimes I choose to wait and trust, other times it seems chosen for me by circumstance. Last fall I chose to wait for a roommate and apartment situation that felt right and exciting. I worked for it appropriately, but not overtime (by making connections and entering discussion with potential housemates), leaving space for God. I passed over a few options that didn't have the right "vibe." I did get a roommate and apartment, and though the situation has been anything but what I expected, one of my top priorities was cost and that has worked out perfectly well. This past winter I chose to wait for a job. Of course I submitted applications, but not hundreds of them and I didn't panic and just apply anywhere and rush into a poor fit. I did my part, preparing and praying, then waited. I love my job and am so grateful I was able to choose patience, because it was about two months between my application and starting work.
I have often seen God do the heavy lifting in situations when I trust Him. Several of these have happened since I memorized the verse, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still" (Exodus 14:14). Prework may be needed, but time/God does the real work. You can't just catch up real quick at the end, having done no preparation, but if you act wisely at the right time, you don't have to be constantly working as you wait. When workarounds to waiting are possible, like baking avocados to force-ripen them, they tend to have side consequences, like the avocados being kind of gross.
I think growing plants/crops are the best example of having no choice but to wait and trust. You plant seeds, and you water them, but you're not making anything grow by your effort, even though without your effort it wouldn't grow, either. A more personal example is my writing process. My words and brain need time to just sit apart once I've written and before I'm ready to go back and revise. I've heard making sun butter fits into this category, but I haven't yet been successful at making it creamy and buttery so I can't confirm that giving it time to release its oils is indeed the way to make it good. Investing money also requires early or well-timed action, but not daily work.
Then there are the things for which I did not realize I was waiting at the time. Over a long time, intentionally but without a plan or schedule, I learned to cook in ways that work well for me. Because I was willing to wait rather than rush, I received a ton of free stuff for my apartment, including mattresses (from trusted friends, haha), lamps, plates, silverware, glasses, furniture, etc. More than I would have dared to expect. Budgeting has also come to me slowly over the years. Finding rhythms for cleaning, decluttering, and writing are still in process (I do these things, but not in a set pattern), but I've learned to trust that they will eventually get here and I don't have to make myself crazy trying to rush it.
A last example: gradually, over several years, I became interested in the Presidential election. What didn't cause this was pressure or comments/lectures about responsibility and citizenship. The few of those I experienced made me feel vaguely guilty. No, my interest simply grew as I became a young adult making her way in the world, hearing more real-life stories and learning first-hand about health care. I never felt well-informed enough to vote before. It's not that I'm much, much better informed now; I've simply accepted that not everything I wish to know can be known. I will probably not know any of the candidates personally. There's no iron-clad way to predict their behavior. But the internet can help me match candidates with their stances. Ironically, accepting what I cannot control has released me to do what I can do without feeling suffocated. (Though I have to point out that this timing of my first actively-interested election feels like a cruel joke in light of the Presidential voting options we are likely to have available come November!)
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