by Meghan Ryan Asbury
I’ll confess something to you: My life still doesn’t look anything like I thought it would at this point.
Many days I’m disappointed by my reality because my circumstances haven’t yet been tied up in a pretty bow. Maybe you have similar circumstances you wish were different. Or maybe a gap exists between where you are and where you want to be, but you just aren’t sure what you can do about it. If this is true for you, I want to invite you to go there with me, because I think we may both come out the other side a little better than we started.
Because today, I can say with full confidence that even though I don’t have everything I want, I deeply love my life.
While I was busy wishing for so many things to be different, God filled my life with more joy than I could’ve dared to imagine possible. Not because I cracked the code to happiness or manipulated myself into delusional optimism with Band-Aid Bible verse answers. But because I realized true satisfaction can be found between where you are and where you want to be.
Maybe you’re thinking, Sounds great for you, Meghan, but that doesn’t seem possible for me. Which you have every right to think.
For a long time, I thought that way too. Which is why I’m glad you are here.
Maybe you’re disappointed with where you are and struggling to move forward.
True satisfaction can be found between where you are and where you want to be.
I have been asking myself one really big question, and as we take this journey together, I want to ask it of you too:
What if we are missing the best parts of our lives because we are too busy looking around us?
I especially feel this tension when I look at the generation I’m part of and the one coming behind me. Sometimes it keeps me up at night. I’m afraid we are missing out on the best parts of life because we are stuck wishing for different ones. We think true happiness and satisfaction are found in changing our circumstances, even when we actually have the kinds of lives others only dream of having.
What if God is writing a better story for your life—a story that is unfolding right in front of you today? Your life is not “out there” or coming “someday,” but it’s happening right here, right now.
Hebrews 12:1 says God has marked a race for us to run, but we get exhausted from chasing the lives of people around us. We’re running endless laps around a track trying to keep up with people who had different starting points. Plus, you may be training for the Boston Marathon when your race is only a 5K, a trail run, or heck, even a nice jog on the beach. Not to mention, we have our own junk—that is, our sin—weighing us down and making us want to numb out.
The race of life is not actually a competition. We’re not stacked up against each other. You aren’t losing, and the person running their race near you isn’t winning. The race features runners going in different directions, at different paces, facing different hurdles along the way. But the finish line is the same: eternity with Jesus. When we take our eyes off him to focus on the racers around us, we can trip, get hurt, or throw ourselves off course.
But when we focus on what God has given us, we find a better way to live—a way to stop endlessly striving to catch up.
What if we learned to love where we live without wishing we were somewhere else?
What if we embraced our talents and found delight in the things we do for work and fun instead of looking at what everyone else is doing online?
What if we built real, authentic communities with the people in front of us instead of feeling left out?
What if we found confidence in the races God marked for us instead of trying to chase different ones?
It’s possible. More than that, I think it’s urgent because we have an enemy—the devil—and that enemy would love nothing more than to slow you down, sideline you, or convince you to quit. You have a part to play in building the kingdom of God, but the devil knows it’s really hard for you to do your part if you’re distracted and feeling behind.
Meghan Ryan Asbury is an author and speaker who is passionate about helping people find and live out their God-given callings. She’s worked in ministry both on college campuses and internationally as well as with Proverbs 31 Ministries. When she’s not surrounded by friends, you can usually find her reading a book or doing something outdoors. A Florida beach girl born and raised, she and her husband currently live in Nashville, Tennessee. You can connect with her at AlwaysMeghan.com.
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