going nowhere | Devotions by Chris Hendrix

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August 24, 2026 · 5:49 AM

Shaping Your Future

Any time I’m talking with a leader, pastor or person who feels like they’re spinning their wheels, but going nowhere fast, I bring up Covey’s Four Quadrants. There’s urgent and important, not urgent and important, urgent and not important, and not urgent and not important. So many of us spend so much time in that first one that’s urgent and important. The problem is that we’re constantly on high alert, putting out fires and handling issues of the moment, but never getting to do anything about the future. Life can feel unfulfilling when we are constantly just handling today’s issues, yet they must be taken care of. There’s a feeling that God has more for us, but we can never get to it when we’re on the treadmill of urgent and important constantly.

In 1 Samuel 23 and 24, David had been anointed as king a while back, but found himself nowhere near the palace. Instead he was living in caves in the wilderness. He was running for his life from King Saul. Instead of leading a nation, he was leading 400 men who were outlaws, running from their own problems. Every day was living reactively to the problems that presented themselves. They were in survival mode just trying to hide from those who wanted to kill them. What David didn’t k ow was that God wasn’t wasting the years of hiding and hanging out with criminals. God was preparing him for the future and shaping his heart to trust God over his circumstances. His living in the urgent and important quadrant wasn’t blocking God’s purposes, but rather building him for those purposes.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (NLT). Life has trained us to live in the moment and to deal with today’s problems. It feels unfulfilling because God has built you with an eternal mindset. Yet God doesn’t waste today’s problems. He sees the bigger picture of your life that you can’t see while your battling today’s problems. It can feel like you’re going nowhere fast, but God is shaping you for the future. He’s at work in the important and not urgent quadrant that prepares you for the purposes He created you for. While the things that are urgent and important seem to dominate you today, God is at work shaping your future.

Photo by LARAM on Unsplash

Leaving The Doldrums

Not long after Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, other ships began to make the voyage across the pond. Several ships noticed a strange phenomenon as they sailed near the equator. There was very little wind and ships would drift there for weeks or months. In time, this area of the ocean became known as the doldrums. Sailors avoided it because they didn’t take the provisions to survive a trip that got stuck there for a long period. The doldrums became known as a place of stagnation, depression and death.

If you read the first part of Acts, the disciples had been in the doldrums since the crucifixion of Jesus. They had moments where Jesus would appear to them, but when He left, they would feel just as stuck as before. On one of those occasions Jesus spoke to them and said, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift He promised as I told you before. (Acts 1:4 NLT).” Wait? For how long? How could Jesus leave them adrift in the doldrums? It was a dangerous time to be in Jerusalem. Just 40 days before, Jesus had been killed and they feared they were next.

They met in the Upper Room and prayed for the next ten days as they waited. Then Acts 2:2 says, “Suddenly there was a sound from Heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. (NLT)” God sent the wind of the Holy Spirit to fill their sails and push them out of the doldrums. That wind pushed them and the message of Jesus all over the world. They were no longer stuck in their depression and doubt. They were revived and renewed because they waited on the Lord in prayer.

If you’re stuck in the doldrums, let me encourage you not to give up. Wait on the Lord in prayer and ask for Him to send the Wind of the Holy Spirit into your life. I’m talking about spending some serious time in prayer. The disciples prayed and waited in one place until God answered. We need to do the same thing. We need to commit to praying not just a one or two sentence prayer, but an active, waiting on God all day kind of prayer if we truly want out of the doldrums. We need to wait on the Lord until He answers. Be prepared though. When that rushing, mighty wind blows into your life, God will take you farther than you ever dreamed possible.

One final thought: The doldrums are where hurricanes originate from. What seems like a windless, stagnant place is where God launches His most powerful forces.

Photo by Jamie Morrison on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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