A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.

If we can't finish, all our work is for nothing.

I experienced it as a compulsion to self-destruct. I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more different ways I'd find to screw it up.

Act, Junah, but act without attachment, as the earth does. As I do. The rain falls, with no thought of watering the land. The clouds roll, not seeking to bring shade. They simply do. And we must too.

Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.

The phrase "timing is everything" is never more true than in your walk with God—HIS timing is everything.

But Ecclesiastes tells us, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." God's timing is not the same as ours. His ways are not our ways.

Lord, I know Your timing is not the same as mine. I want all the answers to my prayers right now. But You want me to be patient and wait on You. I lay my concerns before You and leave the outcome in Your hands. Help me to rest in the knowledge that Your timing is perfect, just as everything You do is perfect.

Be encouraged when your prayers reveal progress that can be measured even in the tiniest increments. God is at work in your life and in the lives of those around you, and before long, little by little will add up to major change.

The next time you are tempted to become restless during a time of waiting on God, use that time instead to praise God for all the benefits and blessings that He has in store for you. And don't forget to thank Him that His timing is perfect.

But you don't have to change the world to earn the applause of heaven.

The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile.