Wasted

Introduction:

Welcome my friend,

I'd like you to picture someone standing in front of their home, plucking fruits from the tree while they're still unripe.

In doing so, they throw away the chance to enjoy the sweet, fully ripe fruit that would have been theirs if they’d simply waited a little longer.

This is exactly what happens when our desires reach for opportunities we’re not yet equipped to hold.

So that we waste openings that could have served us far better at a later time.

Discussion:

Have you ever fallen out with someone earlier, only to meet them again years later and realize you were both immature back then; and would have been different had timing been better?

Or you look back at a job you once wanted and recognize how unprepared you truly were, and how poorly it would have gone had you actually gotten it?

These things happen quite often and they do because many times what we desire rarely matches our readiness for it, leading to a waste of the very openings that would've been better suited for on a future date.

This is the basis of today's conversation.

■ Wasted - When Timing And Readiness Don’t Align

We often judge an opportunity based on its availability, rather than our readiness to truly keep it.

So when something we desire shows up, we take its presence as permission to reach for it.

Yet, availability isn't proof of readiness.

An open door doesn't necessarily mean we're prepared for what waits on the other side.

Which is where so much gets wasted.

Here, it's not because the opportunity itself isn't right, but because it arrived while we were still unfinished, still becoming the version of ourselves capable of carrying it well.

This is the role of timing.

Truth is, desire and readiness are two different things and it's only when they align that an opportunity can give us what it was really meant to.

■ Wasted - The Relationships We Weren’t Ready For

When we think back to that person we fell out with too soon.

Chances are that the conflict wasn’t purely about them.

It was also about who we were at the time:

Someone still learning how to communicate, someone carrying insecurities we hadn’t yet named, someone reacting from wounds we hadn’t yet healed.

We know that had that same relationship come later, after some growing up had happened, it may have survived the very things it couldn’t survive then.

Here, it isn't necessarily only because our feelings have evolved, but because our capacity to hold it well also has.

Indeed, this can be hard to accept, since it means we have a hand in it.

Yet, it's only through this acceptance that we become open to do better in our current relationships, now willing to ask what we can do better, listen to hear it, and actually do.

■ Wasted - The Opportunities We Couldn’t Have Sustained

Some relationships unlock rare and distinctive opportunities.

When we destroy those relationships, everything tied to them disappears with them.

This connects directly to what we have been exploring these past weeks around collaboration.

Truth is, relationships and opportunities are almost never separate.

The mentor we walked away from too soon, the partnership we let pride dissolve, the network we burned in a moment of impatience…

All these carry openings we couldn’t yet see, so that they're the hidden costs of our immaturity.

We don't just waste the relationships alone, we waste everything the relationship was quietly connected to.

We waste the doors we didn't even realize we shut, simply because we weren’t yet ready to receive what waited on the other side.

■ Wasted - Building Capacity Before Reaching Again

If the issue is wanting something too soon, the answer isn't to stop wanting it.

It's learning how to wait in the right way.

Instead of resenting the delay, we can treat it as the time needed to become the kind of person who can actually hold what we seek.

This requires honest recognition of the exact gap, whether in skill, emotional maturity, or character; and the quiet work of closing it before we stretch out our hands again.

This work is rarely exciting.

It's rarely even visible to anyone but ourselves.

Yet it's precisely the unseen preparation that decides whether the next opportunity is wasted or finally kept.

■ Wasted - The Illusion Of “Now Or Never”

Premature desire almost always convinces us that this is our only chance.

That if we don't seize it immediately, it will never come again.

Yet, this urgency is rarely as true as it feels.

Truth is, most genuine opportunities, the ones truly meant for us, tend to return in some form, or open a door that’s even better suited to who we've now become.

Which means that what we lose by waiting is rarely the opportunity itself.

It's the version of it that we imagined in our impatience; a mere fantasy shaped more by urgency than by truth.

When we start seeing it this way, we free ourselves to ask the better question: not “will I lose this if I wait,” but “am I actually ready to keep this if I take it now?"

■ Patience - Trusting God’s Timing Over Our Hunger

As believers, our desires are not something to be ashamed of.

God places these longings in us for good reason.

However, He also sees and knows things beyond our impatience: that some blessings, received too soon, would break us rather than build us, and that His delay is rarely His denial.

Truth is, the scripture recorded lots of people who waited far longer than they wanted to before receiving what was promised to them, folks like David and Joseph.

Indeed, God wasn't withholding these blessings out of cruelty, but because He was preparing them, making all circumstances align in their favor.

When we trust Him with our timing, we’re not suppressing our desire.

We’re simply refusing to let our hunger override His wisdom on when we’re truly ready to receive what we're asking for.

Summary:

It’s essential that we learn to endure our longings, choosing not to act on them when we aren’t yet ready for all they might unlock.

The truth is, not every unmet desire is a loss.

Some are simply God's way of protecting us from wasting openings we'd value better in the future.

The fruit left hanging a little longer isn’t being withheld from us.

It’s being given time to become everything it was meant to be, so that when we finally reach for it, nothing is wasted in the taking.

See you next week, my friend.

Master Apprentice 🇳🇬 

www.x.com/truekingmaker