"Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way." Proverbs 19:2 ESV

We have grown up in a perpetual state of constantly anticipating what is to happen in the future. We spend the school year looking forward to the summer. We spend the school day looking forward to the hour that the final bell rings. Freshmen want to be sophomores so they're not the "freshies" anymore. Sophomores want to be juniors so they can get out of the awkward middle year. Juniors want to be seniors and have a lighter workload. Then, seniors just want to graduate and move on with their lives. We spend childhood wanting to be teenagers and then our teen years wanting to be adults. Then we spend every week just trying to make it to the weekend. We are in a constant state of anticipation and never a presence of dwelling.

But if we spend our lives looking ahead, we are never truly being, never really living. Even for me in this past week, I had three tests, a speech, and a huge paper due. You can bet that I was saying, I just need to get through this week. I was impatient with my days.

In my small group on Wednesday night, I found out that I was not the only one feeling this way. In fact, some girls even said that they were looking forward to the semester being over. It's not just because of the workload, but also because many of us new freshmen are still in the process of building strong friendships and relationships. We are impatiently waiting for when we feel we can have friends that are comparable to those at home.

However this is an unrealistic expectation as looking back at the strong relationships one has at home, they probably took years to cultivate. It hit me this past Wednesday night how impatient I was being with not only God's plan but also His perfect timing.

I have been impatient because, while I love Pepperdine and I am meeting tons of new people, the relationships have not reached the level of the ones I have with the people I grew up with. This results in feelings of loneliness. Which is something weird about college, it is so easy to make many friends very quickly, but we are used to being filled up by our families, friends, and things that are now miles and miles away from us. Then, since we don't have those same relationships, people, and things here, we feel a paradox of loneliness and we impatiently seek out our people who we want to fill us up.

But maybe God has a different plan. This is not to say that those relationships won't come, because they will, just in His timing. Maybe God is using this season of life to test our patience. Maybe He wants us to realize that it is okay to feel a little bit lonely, and instead of seeking out the material world to fill us up, we should look to Him. We should bask in the fact that we are individuals and just allow ourselves to be a single human being seeking and growing in their relationship with God.

I truly believe that it is through our increased faith in His plan, diligent patience in His timing, and ability to accept what He has in store in all seasons of life, is how we will find abundant peace.

The Proverb says that whoever "makes haste with his feet," or rushes through life looking only at what is ahead, "misses his way", or misses the gift that is today. Don't be the person who only looks ahead at the future, because God has a purpose in every season, every time, and every day; no matter how happy, how angry, how lonely, or how at peace you feel. God is always moving. So trust in His plan and be patient in His timing. And if you are in a season where you are experiencing some loneliness, mask in your individuality and let Him shape you, He is making you into something beautiful in His time.