There’s a quote about how we spend our days wishing it were night and our nights wishing it were the next day. We let present anxiety rob us of future joy and we miss the present. We’re so focused on what might go wrong that we can’t see everything that is right right in front of us.

The secret to joy is learning how to experience it not in some theoretical future when your conditions have been met, but right here and now. It’s not “when I get out of school” or “when I get married” or “when I have children” or “when I get that job.”

When you’re in an in-between place, that’s where you learn to trust God. When you’re in the hallway waiting for the next door to open, that’s when you truly learn to worship in spirit and truth. When you declare God’s goodness before you see the good hand of God, you practice genuine and unshakeable faith.

Maybe what you need right now is a good belly laugh. Or maybe what would do you the most good is a nap. Or maybe you need to sit in the moment and count your blessings, naming them each one by one. That’s when you learn that true riches aren’t possessions or even people, but living out of the overflow and abundance of the presence of God, not for what He can give you but for who He is alone.