Hauling Dirt and Building Foundations

So, there's this piece of land by my gym that I pass everyday.

Okay, most days.

Fine, I haven't been there in a week and I'm eating a huge candy bar as I type this...don't judge.

Regardless, a huge piece of land across the street from the gym.  This piece of land is supposed to be the future home of a grocery store that once it is here I will not understand how I lived without it and its bulk bins of spices.

But, nothing has been happening.

For awhile, the dozers and excavators and all those big machine type things were working away.  And then nothing.  Just recently, they started moving again...but let's be honest.  Really, they are just moving dirt from one part of the land to the other part of the land.

No progress.

Quite honestly, I've given up on this amazing store and their bulk spice bins ever being in my town.

However, as I was driving by the land (and the gym as well, presumably doing something much more enjoyable) the other day, I glanced over and then something occurred to me.

That land is a lot like my life.

See, I have this time table for my life...this plan.  And I want things done in a certain amount of time.  I also like them done without hiccups and issues.  And then, when my plans, my time tables, don't pan out - I get frustrated.  I write it off.  I count it as failure.

But the other day when I saw that land, I realized it's not failure.  It's not all for not, they are building the foundation.  Making sure it is straight and level.  They are taking their time to make sure it is done right (because really, do bulk bins of spices deserve anything less?)  Now, I know that construction was halted for a while.  Nothing moved.  No ground was excavated.  By all accounts, the land stood in pause.

See, God is building a foundation in my life.  Sometimes, I feel that by this point on my time table, I should have a sky scraper standing on the figurative land of my life.  But more often than not, I feel like I'm having dirt moved from one side of me to the other.  No progress.  No movement.  And yet there is.

God's making sure I have a good foundation.

I'm quite certain that there has been possibly a nice little house built once or twice on the foundation of my life, but it gets torn down. 

By me.

And my little time table and plans and fits and tantrums.

And I'm quite certain that in that time when there was nothing happening on that land, there was someone, somewhere fighting for the future store to be built.  In the same way, when I feel like nothing is happening in my life, something is happening - just not for me to see.

I'm learning this year how to be patient.  I'm learning to accept that God's time table is much more accurate than my time table.  And I'm resting, or tying to rest...ok, really I'm crying like a baby who doesn't want to rest, but I'm trying to rest in the fact that God's ways really are better than my ways.  And I'm trying, with all my might, to not get impatient with the building of the foundation.

Because really, if bulk spice bins deserve it - how much more do I deserve a strong foundation...on the rock.