God calls to Abraham both before and after the test of tests involving his son Isaac. Each time, Abraham replies, “Here I am.”

God calls to Jacob in a dream to transfer Abraham’s blessing onto him. Jacob replies, “Here I am.”

God calls to Moses from a burning bush to tell him to lead a nation out of slavery. Moses replies, “Here I am.”

God calls to Samuel as a young boy to deliver the first of many prophetic messages. Samuel replies, “Here I am.”

God calls to Isaiah seeking a messenger to stand in the gap of a wayward nation. Isaiah replies, “Here I am.”

I don’t know about you, but I want to lead a significant and consequential life. I want to dare mighty things. It keeps me up at night and drives me on in the daytime. Normal isn’t good enough. Easy isn’t adventurous enough. Good isn’t satisfying enough. There’s only one scale that’s big enough to live on – and that’s God’s. All others pale in comparison.

The only problem is, I can’t write my own script.

In almost every story in the Bible, it was God who instigated, orchestrated and demonstrated His power and faithfulness in incredible ways. So how do we “coax” God to let us in on the action?

I’ve come to learn we can’t preempt a calling, a word or a miracle from God because at the end of the day, it’s “thy will” not “my will” be done. But we can be available. And there are some really good reasons to be. Turns out, I’m not the only one saying, “Here I am.”

In Isaiah 65, God laments through Isaiah the prophet, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call my name.”

Maybe I’m waiting on God when He’s actually waiting on me.

Let’s pause on that. We want God to get us to the next big thing. I know I do. I can’t stand the status quo. I want more. I want it all. But God says, “Here I am, want ME!”

In a world where instant gratification is a realistic expectation, turns out fast is slow and slow is fast. We spin our wheels trying to get to the next destination, physically and spiritually, before we realize that we’re back where we started. And all along God has been saying, “Here I am.” What’s our response?

I still want more. That probably won’t change. But I realize I don’t need to wait. I’m not always sure what God is saying to me or when the next move will come. But that doesn’t stop me from being part of the spiritual conversation. Like the “places” marker on social media, I want my profile to stand out when God looks my way. Here I am.

Here I am means I surrender.

Here I am means I’m available.

Here I am means I’m all in.

Here I am means that regardless of circumstances, I want a relationship with God.

And like icing on the cake, when Jesus shows up, it really gets personal. Check out Revelations 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…”

God is calling my name. Am I calling His?

In an audience of several hundred, I’m sure “that person” could be almost anyone.

It reminded me of a day earlier that week when I had come home from a long day at work with no agenda for the evening. I recently moved to the coast in Florida so I made a quick run to the beach before coming home for dinner. With more time to kill, I started thinking of more options.

“I could really go for a beer,” I thought. “I know, I’ll have a beer on the back porch. With Jesus. You know, quasi-prayer, shoot the breeze style beer with Jesus. That’s normal, right?”

It was awkward. And kind of pathetic. And it didn’t last very long.

I read a story once of a lonely single girl who finally decided to date Jesus. She got dressed up and went to a fancy restaurant by herself. I can’t remember how it went. I don’t think I finished the story.

Can I just state the obvious?

Having a beer with Jesus is not the same as having a beer with a buddy.

Going on a date with Jesus isn’t the same as going on a date with a significant other.

You can’t have sex with Jesus. (wow, that really sounded weird).

You can’t cuddle Jesus the way you cuddle a newborn.

You can’t teach Jesus to throw a baseball the way you would teach a son.

It’s a bit of a head-scratcher hearing the stories of people who “find” God in the richness of their human relationships. A loner with a checkered past discovers God accepts him the way he is when he visits a church that invites him back. A new parent realizes for the first time what it means to be loved as a child of God now that they experience that love themselves.

So… where does that leave everyone else?

One of the real challenges I keep finding with faith is trying to integrate it into regular, everyday life. It’s supposed to fit, but sometimes it just seems like trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. Then what?

I know the “right” answer is that we were all created to be community for each other (at least I’ve heard that a hundred times). The better answer is probably to wait on God to provide for our needs (relational and otherwise). And the best answer might be to pursue the richness of a relationship with God that transcends circumstances. Maybe the perfect answer is that God is always enough.

But what if we gave up on needing to have an answer at all?

What if we just let things be what they are?

There’s always a space between a need and God’s provision, between a test and a testimony. We wouldn’t be honest Christians if we only told the stories of how God showed up – after the fact. “I got engaged – God is so faithful!” or “We finally got pregnant – God is so faithful!” I’d venture to say that most of us “everyday Christians” spend the majority of our lives in some kind of a gap. I know that because I’ve been there often and many of my friends are there as well. The girl whose husband never returned from the war. The couples who can’t stop miscarrying. The families who move cross-country where every face is a new one. My divorced friends. And on and on. Can someone please profile these stories from the pulpit? Can we at least acknowledge them? “Life really isn’t adding up to what I thought it would be and I sure hope there’s something more out there for me.”

It takes faith to live by faith, but I experience life moment by moment – the good ones and the bad ones alike.

It’s hard to have a beer with Jesus, but…

Don’t answer that. Don’t resolve it. Just let it be what it is for now. At least it’s honest.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer, and thought leader. To learn more about his services, visit NathanMagnuson.com/consulting or follow him on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Devotions by Chris.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.…
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

-T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”

I read these words in Philip Yancey’s book Disappointment with God. I was going through a brutal spell in my life. If you’ve read the book, maybe it helped. But it didn’t help me. In fact it just made me feel worse for all the people referenced in the book as well as for myself.

Why do bad things happen to generally decent people? I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand this side of heaven. It might be better if I stopped asking. But there are few things that haven’t escaped me. Maybe they were rungs on the ladder that kept me hitting rock bottom.

Here they are:

I’m not in control. Even if I was, I don’t know what’s best for me.

It’s true – and actually this struck me when things were going well. What do you do when the things that happened by “chance” turned out better than your carefully laid plans? This had been the case a couple different times and while I was overwhelmed with gratitude, it eerily bothered me. When my tides turned, I realized that it goes both ways. In the end, I’m not God. I don’t know what’s best for me, I can’t see the big picture of God’s plan for me and I can’t control all the outcomes in my life. Living by faith means accepting both the good and the bad and realizing both are temporal. Accepting the fact that life isn’t fair helps too.

Take responsibility. Don’t sabotage myself.

If you’ve ever wondered if your life could get any worse, let me clear that up for you real quick. The answer is always yes. That may sound like a morbid thing to say, but the truth is that we’re always one decision away from making things much worse. And when things aren’t going well, we’re in the DANGER ZONE. Think about it: if you’re stuck in a crummy job, you are only one decision away from not having a job at all. If your marriage is going poorly, you are only one decision or one conversation away from a further setback. If you aren’t married and wish you were, you are one or several decisions away from creating a lot more misery for yourself and others.

It’s tempting to say that “God wills” my circumstances to be what they are and then act like a victim. But actually we’re usually our own worst enemy. Proverbs 19:3 says, “People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord” (NLT). When the chips are down, the temptation is even stronger to make foolish choices that add to our pain. We can’t always control our circumstances, but in every situation, we always have a choice of how to respond. And that means we have the responsibility to make a good choice, no matter how good or bad circumstances are.

Realize my pain will be able to be used in a positive way in the future.

If someone had said this to me when I was down, it would’ve brought me up real fast… swinging. That’s not what I wanted to hear. But unfortunately, not “just anyone” said these words. They came from Viktor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, recounting his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. They were also shared by psychologists to the survivors of the PanAm Flight 73 hijacking in 1986 as they prepared to board their next flight.

Those folks have “cred” in my book. I may not like the message, but I can take it coming from them. When I’m hurting, the last thing I want is “some perspective,” but even so, they’ve had far worse than me.

If you’re in pain, there is a sense in which you’re alone. Proverbs 14:10 says, “Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can fully share its joy” (NLT). No one else can walk your path for you and you may not see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know I couldn’t. When we’re stuck “in the waiting,” as Eliot’s poem says, we likely won’t be able to see the redemption in our circumstances. It’s only by faith that we can believe that this too shall pass.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader. To learn more about his services, visit NathanMagnuson.com/consulting or follow him on Twitter.