You can’t do it all, you can’t have it all (and that’s a really good thing)

Here is what God is teaching me these days.

You can’t have it all, you can’t do it all and that is in fact, a very good thing.

I have often lived by the expression “having my cake and eating it too.” Sometimes I said that life is not about either/or but about both/and.

And sometimes this is true. Sometimes people miss the blessing God has for them because they simply don’t wholeheartedly pursue the possibilities.

But, what God is teaching me right now is that I truly can’t do everything and that’s okay. It’s not only that I can “deal with” the sadness of “missing out” on something, but in fact my life can more fulfilling by not trying to do all the things. When there is a lack of margin, when there is a lack of downtime, when there is a lack of stillness and silence (and dare I say: boredom) our lives become so chaotic that we can’t even enjoy the good things that God has prepared for us.

God has created us to experience life, but we need to understand that to experience it as God intended and in a way that will be the most life-giving and the most rewarding, we will absolutely have to say “no” to many other things that simply will threaten and fight against the fullness of God’s plans.

It is not only something that we can say “I can learn to live without that” and it certainly isn’t “settling” but rather it is learning that the higher life that God is calling us to, at times, requires stillness, silence, lack, solitude, boredom, unfilled time and unfilled space.

Instead of “FOMO” (Fear of missing out) we can say, “in Christ and according to His plan, I am even now experiencing abundance by self-denial and by having and doing less.” Just as God turns so many other things upside down, even too in this, less is in fact more.

This is the day/moment that God has made. I will be present and rejoice in it! May we daily believe and declare: “There is joy and peace and goodness and blessing and hope available to me in this moment, in this situation, in this place, in this time.”

May we each learn to slow down, listen to God, be present, enjoy the moment, not worry about what we are missing but instead fully take in and experience what God has in front of us.