That morning I had dressed for winter survival. I had a lighter, gloves, water, knife, multitool, layers and layers of clothing and tall rubber barn boots on over two pairs of wool socks. I was headed to work at the Davis farm where I had worked for a few years. That day I was going to break down the temporary fences across the river from the house. I had already tried to wade through the river, but the water was too high and the temperature that day with the wind chill put it well below zero. It was bitterly cold.

Gary Davis was headed into town so he gave me a ride down to the bridge about a half a mile down stream of the fence I needed to take down. I trudged through the knee-high snow by way of a neighbors’ field and over a ridge, disappearing from sight of the nearby houses. Despite my care in preparing for a day of outside work in the harsh climate of Vermont in early January, I did something you should never do when traversing unfamiliar land in the dead of winter: I took my focus off my immediate surroundings. The sharp sound of ice cracking beneath my feet suddenly brought me back to reality. I was halfway across a small snow covered pond.

I think our fascination with stories is that eventually we find out how it all ended. Thinking back to the fairytales and children’s stories that we all heard growing up have this same thing in common: Eventually we hear how the story ends. Maybe not completely, sometimes they just end with “happily ever after” leaving a sense of closure–yet ambiguity.

It seems that as human beings we have a dire need to know how things end. It’s why we hate it when a movie ends with a “cliff hanger,” it’s why we can’t put the book down, it’s why we have such a hard time “waiting in the Lord” (Is. 40:31). Because our stories do not yet have closure. We do not know how it ends.

It’s so easy to listen to testimonies and think, “Wow! That’s an amazing story about how they came to faith.” Or listen to the stories of people like Tim Keller and his call and ministry in Manhattan and be awed by his story. Sure for two years it was a discouraging wreck with difficult situations and impossible goals, but look where he is now! Look how God has worked through this person to reach people in Manhattan! It’s an amazing story.* But you know what the problem is?

We focus on the end.

The end is only going to be reached by patiently living through the now. Tim Keller didn’t know what the end was going to look like. He was faithful in the challenges and doldrums of everyday life. He took one step at a time.

And you should too.

“Wait upon the Lord…”

We get so lost in these amazing testimonies, these stories of struggling marriages that turned around, the stories of lives that were falling apart but are now changed thanks to Christ, that we forget that it was done one boring, difficult day at a time. It wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t fast; it was one hard step at a time.

“…and He will renew your strength…”

Are you wondering where you are supposed to go next? Are you wondering how you’re going to pay off the loans? How you’re going to pay for more schooling? Wondering how you have graduated and life is nothing like you expected? Are you wondering where or what God is calling you too? Are you wondering how you’re going to live right now in general? Wait, hope, trust in the Lord in the simple, uneventful—and often challenging—everyday life. And then one day, one day, you too will have the amazing testimony, the incredible story of how God has worked in you life, and people will be amazed at how your story “ends.” Wait, be patient in the Lord, and one day, you “will soar on wings like eagles.”

Our problem as a society is that we focus on the end, and only a good ending is a success. No, the success is in the waiting. It’s unglamorous. If you are to be faithful in the wait, and some day your story may be one of great success as well.

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*See Christianity Today “How Tim Keller Found Manhattan.”