you just can't see it yet.

This summer, I spent a week at a lake house with my parents, my sister, and her family. When I first got there, my niece – who was just over a year old at the time – kept pointing to the water. She didn’t have words yet, but she communicated her interest in the water to us a lot. It was almost as if she was saying, “Do you see that over there? Let’s go over there.”

One day, I was holding her while her dad went inside to get her bathing suit. He had said he would take her to the water, but then he went inside – the exact opposite of where the lake was.

She squirmed in my arms, reaching for the door. I tried to distract her, but she wasn’t easily entertained. She was focused on what she wanted, what she heard him say, and how he had gone inside.

I thought about how confused she must have felt. She didn’t understand that he went inside for her. For her joy, for her good. He was going to get what she needed to be fully prepared for what was to come. I thought about how what she wanted was literally in motion, but she didn’t know that because she couldn’t see how progress was being made.

“It’s happening,” I said as I bounced with her in my arms. “You just can’t see it yet.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were for me too.

And maybe for you too.

Because it doesn’t always look like things are moving in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t. It doesn’t always feel like God is working on our behalf, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t.

Sometimes we need other things to be in place – things we don’t even know about and can’t see – before we can step into what’s next.

But this is what’s true: It’s happening. You just can’t see it yet.

The power of God is in you, even on a Thursday.