A few weeks ago, I was talking to a person whom I have known for a long time and who lives far away. He was telling me about his son who is 32 and whom he feels is not “growing up” at the correct pace. His son is not married and he takes odd jobs that have led him around the world. It reminded me of a time when I was much younger and the same man told me he felt the same way about a member of his staff. He told me she needed to get married and be responsible. Now, I am not trying to insult my friend. His concerns and his life experiences have told him that there is a certain time for things. He has a right to his opinion, especially about his son. Nor am I going to lecture him on the sociological and psychological development of the concept of adolescence and how it has widened since the early 1900s till now (though it is interesting!). However, I was thinking about how God views these things.

Now, I was not married when I was 32 and I think if I had been more flexible (more like my friend’s son) about my career and getting married at that time, I probably would have been a lot happier and probably more successful, too. However, that was not the path I was on. I have to admit it has been very hurtful for me. Comparing myself to others and watching others achieving their milestones in life has always left me feeling depressed and jealous. I remember being in classes for my degree in Special Education and getting really depressed as the professor would talk about the definition of “developmental delays” (the things that lay at the core or the definition of individuals with learning disabilities or mental retardation). I always felt behind. Spiritually, I always felt it was unfair and I blamed God that my classmates seemed to be getting jobs and getting married before me.

Regardless of how we see things as needing to happen on OUR timetable (or our parents’), God has His own design on the time that things should happen in our lives. Two things have helped me deal with this. First, my time in martial arts has taught me a lot about Zen philosophy. One of the tenets of Zen that I have learned and tried to incorporate into my life is the notion that life is suffering interrupted by brief moments of happiness and how from the moment I was born until the day I die I will constantly want things. When I compare my life to others and forget to count my own blessings I am constantly discontented with what I got. When I do realize how many blessings I have, I also realize there were advantages to being, “behind”! I must learn to control my thoughts and think better and higher and develop wisdom and patience.

Secondly, I rest in the idea that God has a plan for me and that my life does not have to be “fair” compared to others. I ask, “Was life ‘fair’ for Jesus? For David? For Mother Teresa? For Martin Luther King?” All these people God had on a different path than what other people were doing compared to their contemporaries. I am sure at least once Dr. King, when he was marching down the streets in Alabama, thought to himself, ‘Why do I have to do this? I just want to be home with my wife and kids! I deserve to be happy just like other people my age, don’t I?’ Did marching and standing up in faith make him arrive at a place where his reward was given in worldly things? No, his destination was an assassin’s bullet, the most unfair part of his journey. Yet God used him to change a nation. God had a plan for him that was not like other’s plans.

We are not here for us, the lives (and schedules) of people of faith are ordered by the Lord (Psalms 37:23-25). Dr. King did what he was commanded to do. If our hearts are on the Lord, that is where we should be and that is the schedule we need.

Now clearly, there is nothing wrong with encouraging a son or daughter to get his or her act together. Regardless, we all need to trust God in the little things, in the midst of disappointments and delays great and small and pass the test of jealousy and frustrations that come from them. If we can do that on a day by day basis, then God can use us to do something more, something that will make our delays seem worthwhile both for this world and for ourselves.

Jeremiah 29:11: 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.

———W.