(A version of this post ran earlier this week over at Club31Women.com, a place where you’ll find encouraging devotionals, practical tips for marriage and motherhood, and all sorts of resources for growing in love, faith, and joy. I’m sharing it here today in case you missed it—and because I need to read it again and remember: The best really is yet to come!)
“I’m 37 years old and I still haven’t made it as a TikTok star! Does my life even matter?”
Okay so maybe that’s not something you’d say. Me neither. But sometimes, if we’re being honest, I think many of us quietly assume that our most fruitful years—the ones where we do things that matter—happen when we’re young. When we have energy. Vision. And an Instagram feed filled with the triumphs of fresh-faced influencers who are making their own mark on the world.
We want to be difference-makers—to live out 1 Peter 4:10 and use our God-given gifts—but maybe we’re still trying to work out what that looks like, exactly. Or we know we’ve been called to do something—write a book, start a business, take on a new ministry role—but God hasn’t yet opened the door. Or maybe we’ve laced up our cleats and charged onto the field to fulfill our life’s purpose, only to meet opposition or even defeat. Sitting there in our uncertainty or disappointment, the questions can start to swirl: Did I get it all wrong? Can God still use me? Have I missed my moment?
I’ve been thinking about Moses lately, and I have to wonder: Did he feel the same way?
Poised for purpose, but not yet
Moses spent the first forty years of his life in Egypt. Adopted into Pharaoh’s household, he received the finest leadership training in the land. Acts says he “was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). And yet, despite all of this top-notch privilege and preparation, Moses wasn’t yet living out his calling. He looked like a man poised for influence, but his life was on hold.
And then, just when he thought his time had come—when he stepped in to save an Israelite slave and killed the Egyptian who was beating him—it all backfired. Moses thought his people would realize that God was using him to rescue them but, as Acts 7:25 bluntly puts it, “they did not.” They wanted no part of Moses, in fact. Faced with rejection from the very people he hoped to help, Moses fled into the wilderness of Midian.
Instead of becoming a deliverer, Moses became a fugitive.
For forty more years.
Scripture says very little about those decades (other than that Moses got married and spent his days tending sheep), but I can’t help wondering how often Moses replayed the past in his mind. How often he questioned himself. How often he assumed his best years were behind him.
Are you in a waiting season?
Maybe you know the feeling.
Maybe, like Moses in his younger years, you find yourself in a waiting season. You want clarity. Marching orders. A life marked by purpose and productivity. “Just tell me what you want me to do, Lord, and I’m on it!” You’re primed and ready to go…but God seems silent.
Or perhaps, like middle-aged Moses in Midian, you’re grappling with rejection or disappointment. A dream that you’ve carried—the sense that God has destined you for something significant—feels shattered. Or a relationship has fractured. A career has gone sideways. A child has walked away from their faith. Walked away from you.
God’s delays are not God’s denials
If that’s where you are—living with unmet longings, disappointments, or dying dreams—here are two truths to remember: The Bible says God never stops working—even when we can’t see what he’s doing—and when he calls us to do something, he can be trusted to accomplish the plan. (John 5:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:24)
God’s purposes and his promises do not expire with time or age. His delays, as a wise older friend often reminds me, are not his denials.
Moses was eighty years old when God appeared in the burning bush and told him to confront Pharaoh.
Eighty.
Not forty. Not fifty. Eighty.
The years Moses may have considered wasted or lost—eight decades of living in the “not yet”—were actually years of preparation. In Egypt, Moses learned wisdom and leadership. In Midian, God replaced self-reliance with humility, impulsiveness with patience, and a confidence in human strength with the knowledge that competence, as 2 Corinthians 3:5 reminds us, comes only from God.
Moses represents a life shaped by God, over time.
Moses represents hope.
Studies show—and Scripture bears this out—that our best decades might well be ahead of us. We may not be in top shape physically (or even mentally), but those who remain spiritually engaged and focused on meaningful relationships reap the rewards associated with time: Better judgment, a higher emotional intelligence, lower anxiety, deeper wisdom, and—overall—a greater degree of satisfaction and freedom. Shaped by a lifetime of preparation and the deepening of trust as we experience God’s presence as the reward that eclipses all others, it becomes easy to embrace promises like Psalm 92:14: “They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.”
We know, of course, the rest of Moses’ story. The Israelites’ lives got worse under Moses’ leadership before they got better, they wore him out with their complaints and their whining, and—at the end of the day—Moses didn’t even get to go into the Promised Land (at least not on this side of heaven).
And, despite living to the ripe old age of 120, he never got to be a TikTok star.
But if we could get Moses to speak about the trajectory of his life—from starting out in a basket to joining Jesus and Elijah at the Transfiguration—I’m pretty sure he’d say something along the lines of Proverbs 4:18:
“The ways of right-living people glow with light; the longer they live, the brighter they shine.”
Make it personal:
Where are you living with unmet longings, disappointments, or even the fear of obscurity? Read Isaiah 40:30-31 and Job 42:2. How do these verses encourage you to trust God to accomplish his best purposes in your life?
You can find more reflections about waiting on God, fulfilling your purpose, and aging well in my book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Life . For now, why not turn Proverbs 4:18 into a prayer for yourself or for someone you love?
Heavenly Father,
The path of the righteous is like the morning sun. Lead me in that path and let my life glow with light, shining brighter and brighter with each passing day.
Amen.
