I’m a project-putter-offer. Translation: I really like fresh starts.

I prefer an empty to-do list before starting a new one. I prefer projects to be completed before beginning more. I prefer to put off something new until everything else is in place. My train of thought goes something like this:

“I really want to paint my desk, but I can’t do it until we clean the deck off so it can sit out there. And we can’t clean the deck off until the kids are in bed because they love playing out there.”

Guess what piece of furniture in my office still isn’t painted? And it’s bigger stuff too – I’d love to start a book club. Schedule coffee with that new friend. Work on a writing project. But the list of ‘wait untils’ grows and gets in the way of all good intentions.

I’ve heard the “wait till you’re ready” argument used for getting married, buying a home, changing careers, and having or not having children. These are huge things! Of course there are financial matters to consider. Of course there are steps to take before diving into some things. But in all these situations and more, being ready shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

There are some things that we simply cannot be ready for, and that is okay because it leaves us open.

This isn’t about being a planner kind of person, about having each and every nook & cranny of our lives swept out and ready to go.

It’s about being open to the path God has prepared for each of us. Whether or not we choose to embrace it? That’s on us, and if we’re waiting until everything in our lives is in place, we might miss it.

There’s a running list of incredible-but-ordinary everyday people who stopped waiting to be ready. Who took a deep breath and a leap of faith. Who didn’t hesitate with their yes because their lives were untidy, because they weren’t yet ready.

From Scripture:

• David — a young man who chooses to go up against a pagan giant, knowing though the odds aren’t, God is on his side. So even though David’s not equally as giant, not trained, and not ready, he is victorious.
• Rahab — one of the “bad girls” of the Bible, a prostitute who risks her life and her family to help a couple of Israelite spies and ends up furthering the Kingdom of God. You can read her whole story here, but the part that gets me is this: A prostitute didn’t wait to clean up her life to do God’s work. She accepted the opportunity when she could very well have said, “No thanks. My life’s a mess.”

From the (in)courage family:

• Kristen Welch — a young wife and mom, who didn’t wait for the dust to settle and finances to clear. She chose to hear and accept God’s path for herself and her family, and Mercy House Kenya was born. This beautiful ministry has saved the lives of so many mothers and their babies. Mercy House is a light shining, a city on a hill.
• Ann Voskamp — a farmer’s wife and mother of six, who said yes and stood up to evil. Together with thousands of others she has helped to raise over half a million dollars to fight Isis by putting children in school, educating women, providing business grants for women, and by waging love.

So many people are choosing to follow God’s call in everyday-yet-extraordinary ways — despite their lives being messy. They are changing the lives of others, changing the hearts of families, and changing the course of history in simple and beautiful and small ways.

This isn’t bragging on those people. This is bragging on God.

This is bragging on what He did when His people didn’t hesitate with their yes because things in their lives weren’t just so.

What would’ve happened if they’d waited until they were ready to say yes ? There could have been catastrophic consequences to their hesitation.

We may not be ready, but He is. So take the risk. Give a yes. Paint that desk.

What could you do — what could He do through you — if you stopped waiting to be ready?

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God uses people who say yes to Him, even when things in their lives aren’t just so. {Tweet this!}

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