A man was once asked, “Sir, do you like surprises?”
He responded, “The good ones or the bad ones?”
Life doesn’t really care about your preferences when it comes to which kinds of wonder it places in your path. It can be a random bank deposit or a flat tire. Both sets of unexpected circumstances either reveal something in you or teach you something about the world around you that prepares you for your “next.”
That is why this week, I advise we all get used to surprises.
There is a delicate balance when you desire to be consistent in a season when you haven’t fully bloomed. And it takes forever, it seems, to get through these moments where I know I am not supposed to be performing productivity, but I am not quite sure what I am supposed to be doing. While it used to be easier to slip back into old ways, today in particular was, dare I say it—softer.
I woke up later on a Saturday instead of my internal clock torturing me at 5:30 a.m.
I allowed myself to sit with the confusion of unproductivity and how I am not lazy because I am choosing this today. I meditated and flowed into things I wanted to do, like mindlessly scrolling that “clock app,” then cooking some of my favorite comfort foods. A surprise is that I have come to love my life alone.
When God calls you into these healing, lonely seasons, they are not meant to be easy journeys. I’ve learned that seasons of isolation are used for a variety of things—revealing mindsets, removing habits, rewiring patterns, developing relationships, and allowing God to do whatever spiritual development needs to happen away from others to get us to the next level in our lives.
It’s like training for a heavyweight fight—the Creed that went into the desert is not the man that came out ready to fight old boy from the hood in III. The longer you are isolated, the harder you train, the more you transform. And I am not ready to walk into the ring. I feel like I have just arrived in the desert. But already, I like what I am becoming.
So I dare you to change your outlook on life’s unexpected situations. Each circumstance, positive or not so much, is a chance to reveal something in us. The next time something happens that you did not plan for, remember—life is full of surprises. What will this one say about me?
