SERIOUSLY...BUILD IT, ALREADY!

It's been four months.  Easily.

There's a corner we often pass on which a large gas station is to be built.  They demolished the one that used to be there, and have been preparing the land for building ever since. 

And preparing the land.

Aaaand preparing that land some more. 

We know they're out there doing something.  We see the large machines working the land nearly every day.

But seriously...build that thing already.

Start doing something our eyes can see.  When we drive by, all we see is a plot of what we are sure is really, really, really ready land with nothing on it.  We're itching for them to pour the foundation, start on the framework.  Built that thing.

And yet they keep readying the land.

Maybe there's something to that.  Maybe it's kind of an important part of the process.

This is so where I am living these days--crying out for God to build in me something I can see.  And yet He seems pretty focused on this first-things-first, don't-cut-corners process of readying my heart...a process with which I get antsy.  To say I'm prone to impatience is an understatement.

Build something I can see, LORD. 

When God called David to royal position, David was still just a shepherd in a field.  A sheep-tender being readied. When He foreknew Joseph as the keeper of the grain, Joseph was marking the years off in pits and prisons. And yet His heart was being readied. 

I'm weary of the readying, God.  Please build something I can see.

Maybe you're there with me.  You feel a calling, a quickening of your heart to something.  But you're in the readying season.  And the readying season involves a whole lot of unspectacular, if you know what I mean.  You look around and don't see evidence of anything being BUILT.  You're just being prepared. 

And yet while it's a tough season, it is nothing short of a critical step in the process for anything that will last.  Shortcuts don't lead to sure things.  Fully prepared and level ground is the only place where a building can truly stand. 

Father, I know that the readying isn't for nothing.  It precedes building.  It comes before the "Ooh, look at that" season.  It just feels like you've been preparing my heart for years, and I'm eager for evidence of building. 

Yet not as we will, but as You will. 

Strengthen our hearts to say, "Take every single moment that You, in Your sovereignty, know needs to be taken to fully prepare my heart for whatever You, in Your sovereignty, see fit to build there."