Here at the start of the new year, most of us are thinking about pushing ahead, setting goals (and reaching them), and other forms of forward motion.

And yet, someone shared the following quote with me this weekend, attributed to UK author Kester Brewin from The Complex Christ: Signs of Emergence in the Urban Church:

Somewhere between the freedom of being able to do nothing, and the pretense of having to do something, is the sort of mysterious waiting of the saints and the prophets—a combination of catharsis and contemplation, of clearing the decks for the new, while being content to exist in unknowing. As we wait for the kingdom to break through again now, we are not called to inaction, to do nothing but lie back and wait for glory. But neither are we called to frenzied activity, which will leave no space for newness to be sown and grown. We must have the courage to stop. To prepare the ground for the new, and wait.

I appreciated that word. As you and I step into this season full of expectations to DO something, let’s be careful to discern what kind of season our lives or ministries are actually entering. Perhaps we need the courage to stop, prepare the ground, and wait. Even if it means swimming against the current that surrounds us.