Grace had done everything Chapter 2 asked of her. She had written her expectation on a sheet of paper and taped it inside the door of her provisions shop in Ibadan: This shop will cover all its costs from sales alone, with no more money from my savings. She had dug her ditches. She had cut two slow-moving lines of stock, renegotiated with one supplier, and started writing every sale in a notebook instead of trusting her memory.
Then, one evening, her daughter asked a simple question. “Mummy, by when?”
Grace did not have an answer. She had an expectation, a list of ditches and a great deal of faith. She did not have a date. Without noticing it, she had been living as if the rain could come any day or no day at all. On good days she felt it was almost here. On bad days, when the price of rice jumped again and a customer asked for credit, she felt it would never come. Her expectation had no season, so every week felt like the week it was failing.
That night she took the paper off the door and added three words: by the end of March. Underneath, she wrote three smaller dates. December: two good weeks in a row. January: one full month where sales covered stock. February: one month where sales covered stock, rent and her assistant’s pay. Then she read Mark 4:28 aloud in the empty shop. “For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”
Later she would say that the verse did something the dates alone could not. It gave her permission to see a blade and call it progress.
Every expectation has a season
Time is the frame that holds an expectation in place. When the sense of timing is off, purpose is easily neglected and defeated. An expectation without a season cannot be enforced, because nobody, including you, can say whether it has been met. It floats. It becomes a mood instead of a commitment.
The Preacher in Ecclesiastes saw this clearly. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. He was not saying that everything is fixed and we can do nothing. He was saying that purpose and time belong together. A purpose without a time is not yet ready to be pursued.
I said in the first edition that every expectation has an expiry date. I still believe it, and I want to be careful about what it means. An expectation does not die because a date passes. But it does go stale if it is never executed. The moment it was meant for goes by, the people who were waiting on it move on, and the opportunity it was built for closes. Habakkuk was told that the vision is for an appointed time. Appointed means someone set it. Part of your work is to set yours.
Everyone gets the same day
Every person who draws breath receives the same allowance each morning: twenty-four hours, which is 1,440 minutes, which is 86,400 seconds. The president gets no more than the street sweeper. The billionaire cannot buy an extra hour, and the poorest person on earth is not given one less.
And by evening, everyone’s allowance is spent. Time cannot be saved for later like money in a bank. It cannot be refunded when it was wasted, transferred to someone who needs it more, or borrowed against next week. When it is gone, it is gone. That is why Paul twice tells us to redeem it. “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time” (Colossians 4:5).
First the blade
Mark 4:28 is one of the most practical verses in the Bible for anyone who is waiting. Growth comes in stages: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn. A farmer who walks into his field two weeks after planting and sees only thin green shoots does not tear them up because they are not yet corn. He knows the stages. He knows what each one looks like and roughly when it should appear.
Six habits for the timing of expectation
The first edition gave six tips for managing time well. They are still the right six. I have only added a few words to each for the life you are living now.
- Set your priority from the start. Decide early what this expectation is worth in hours. If it matters, it gets time on the calendar before anything else is scheduled around it.
- Avoid procrastination from every angle. Procrastination rarely announces itself. It arrives as research, as tidying, as one more video. The cure is usually to start smaller, not to try harder.
- It is okay to say no when you are overwhelmed. Every yes spends time you cannot get back. A gentle no to a good thing can be a strong yes to the expectation God has given you.
- Make time for rest. All work and no play is dangerous. Rest is part of the plan, not a reward for finishing it.
- Avoid multitasking if you cannot cope. Some people can carry several things at once. Many of us only think we can. If two tasks are each getting half your mind, neither is getting your best.
- Respect time, including other people’s. You cannot outsmart time. Remember that others are often waiting on you to meet your expectation before they can meet theirs. Being late is a way of spending someone else’s time without asking.
What has changed since the first edition
When the first edition was written, the great thief of time was the television. Today it is the phone, and it steals differently. The television took whole evenings, and at least we knew we had given them away. The phone takes time in fragments: two minutes here, four there, a notification in the middle of a thought. By evening the day is gone and we cannot say where.
Those fragments matter more than they seem. An expectation is usually built in small blocks of focused time: an hour to write the business plan, twenty minutes to study, ten minutes to make the hard phone call. Fragmented attention rarely produces any of those blocks. You can be busy all day and never once have touched the thing you said you were expecting.
When the date is near
One more thing about seasons. Setting a date is an act of faith, and it is also an act of honesty. It means that one day you will look at the calendar and see whether the rain came.
Grace knows this. As March approaches, she checks her notebook every Saturday evening. Some weeks the numbers are close. Some weeks they are not. She does not know yet whether the full corn will be standing by the end of the month, and neither do I. If it is not, the date will not be a verdict on her faith. It will be information, and Chapter 15 will show what to do with it. But because she set the season, she will know where she stands. Most people who never set a date never find out.
Dig this week
- Give one expectation a season. Write the date beside it, then write three smaller dates before it, one each for the blade, the ear and the full corn, and what you expect to see at each.
- Write one rule and keep it for seven days: If I pick up my phone while I am working on this, then I put it in another room for the next thirty minutes.
- Make room as if it is coming. Block one hour in next month’s calendar labelled with what you will do in the season after your expectation is met, and protect it the way you would protect an appointment that is already confirmed.
Questions to ponder
- Which of your expectations has no date? What has that cost you?
- What would the blade look like for your most important expectation? When should you see it?
- List two goals you met recently and how long each one actually took.
- Describe what you do between waking and starting work, and between dinner and sleep. Where does the time go?
- Roughly how many minutes a day go to scrolling? What would one of those hours be worth if you gave it to your expectation?
More questions for small groups are in the book.
Lord, teach me to number my days. Help me set a season for what I am expecting, to see the blade and give thanks for it, and to rest in You while the corn grows.
How ready are you for what you are expecting?
Score yourself on all eleven elements in about two minutes. You will see where to dig first.