What I’m doing makes others nervous. What I’m doing makes me nervous. “Do you have enough time to do this?” is a question that I get asked. In fact, a good friend asked me that just yesterday.

Indeed. Do I have enough time? Normally a church planter would market like mad, have a big launch service and then be off and running.

The time issue has caused me some angst. The calendar reminds me that time is flying by but I’m not making “normal” church planting progress. All this has led me to change the way I evaluate this. I have moved from asking, “What can I do to make this happen?” to “What is God doing in this place?” The change of question completely altered the way I view this.

The new question is not intended to remove my personal responsibility. (God does not reward laziness.) But, like Gideon, I’ve had to learn that if I turn my time over to God, I have to be prepared to accept whatever consequences that brings. For Gideon it was going to battle with only 300 men. For me it is watching my planning calendar be blown to smithereens.

Do I have enough time for this? Not if you put it on a spreadsheet. There’s not enough money to do what I’m doing, and that is terrifying. But if you ask “Does God have enough time to do this,” then you get an entirely different answer.