At Destiny Coaching, amongst our student community we have a culture of dreaming big and expecting great things from God in our future. This I believe is scriptural and correct. Jesus came to give us life and life abundant (John 10:10)
We have also been given authority by Jesus to be His hands and feet on this earth to bring His kingdom forth. The conundrum comes when things do not progress as we hope. When things may take a lot longer than we expect. When progress gets halted or something, we step out into fails. These things happening can be very discouraging. As in the last year, when we experience world events which affect our lives in crazy ways, we can lose hope and can fall into the trap of downsizing our dreams and adjusting our belief around what we believe our purpose is.
From examining the journey of many Biblical characters and observing the journey of many people that we have coached, we have learned that there are many different types of seasons between dreaming a dream and seeing it come into fruition. The journey of fulfilling our purpose in God is definitely not a linear one.
Some seasons we go through, are what I am going to call ‘plodding seasons’. These are seasons where nothing much seems to progress. Maybe we see very slow progress or maybe we see no progress at all. We feel like we are just slowly going through days, one by one, with no end in sight, no big breakthroughs to speak of, no amazing milestones that we can identify. We may feel a bit like time has stood still or that we’ve moved backwards.
The key in times like this is to value these seasons and develop a value and respect for just plain plodding. By this I mean, we adjust our value system to see that a season, where we just get through each day, we just keep going no matter what, is in fact amazing! Even if it feels like snail pace, if we simply carry on and keep believing and pursuing God’s purpose for our lives, what we truly want, and what God has called us to, we are in fact doing well. We need to realise that seasons where we just hang in there and carry on are of extreme value and importance in the overall journey.
Having gone through a season of grief in losing my brother, my dad, a best friend and a relationship within just a few years, I learned that sometimes you lose the motivation to carry on. However, in these times, pushing through and carrying on regardless is more valuable than you can imagine. On the outside it may not look like much, just coping, just getting through, just waking up each day and doing what you need to do, but God knows the struggle that it can be for you to live each day, each hour and each minute of seasons like this and He is immensely proud of each moment we choose faith, belief and joy during times like these. Just getting through, just plodding on is in many seasons, brave, courageous and strong.
At times like these, we can learn to celebrate just getting through, or managing the smallest task. We can celebrate not giving up when things feel hard, or boring or impossible. Sometimes being a plodder, the one who keeps going, when the going gets tough, even if that looks like nothing spectacular, even if you need to slow down, and achieve less for a while, is something to be grateful for. The fact that you keep going and keep plodding is building tenacity in you. It’s building one of the most valuable character traits you can possess and that is ‘true grit’. Possessing a good healthy amount of true grit is a common trait that is found in the world’s most impactful people, the self-made millionaires and billionaires, the leaders of global initiatives, the leaders of nations, the generals that won wars, the survivors of the impossible, the pioneers of world class inventions, the authors of life changing books, the people that save lives, the best parents, spouses and the most beloved pursuers of God.
So, in seasons when you feel you are failing or when you feel you can’t carry on, value exactly that, just getting through and just carrying on no matter what. You are building something in you that will expand your capacity, and your ‘impactfulness’ in so many ways in your lifetime and in the legacy you leave to all those that will observe and witness the way you led your life.