We all want to find significance in life. We all want to make a difference in life. And in our fast-forward existence, we all feel like doing something meaningful in life has to wait until the busy-ness and chaos of this season of life has passed.

We’re like the farmers Solomon describes in Ecclesiastes: “If the clouds are full, they will pour out rain on the earth; whether a tree falls to the south or the north, the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. One who watches the wind will not sow, and the one who looks at the clouds will not reap” (Ecclesiastes 11:3-4).

This is what happens when we’re just waiting until the conditions are perfect. When we’re waiting until the wind is just right and the clouds are just right.

Because so many of us say, “I’d like to do something significant, but I’m just so busy right now. You don’t know what’s going on with my work. You don’t know what’s going on with my family. I need to wait until things slow down. I need to wait until things are less chaotic.

That may be true. Sometimes. But most of the time? “One who watches the wind will not sow, and the one who looks at the clouds will not reap.” If you don’t do it now, you’re probably never going to do it.

I know, we all want to wait until we feel like we’ve got life under control. But the point Solomon’s making is, life is never under your control. You’ve got no control over the rain, the wind, or the clouds, and you’ve got no control over the stress in your job or the chaos in your family.Sure, you can do some things to contain it. But you can never really control it.

We have four kids, so in our family it’s chaos 24/7. Our schedule is always in chaos. Our house is always in chaos. We’ve got pre-teens and teenagers (and pre-teen and teenage girls), so emotions are always in chaos.

So I used to try to figure out ways to control the chaos. Like, “Let’s try to schedule all the kids activities at the same time.” Yeah, like that’s going to work. “Let’s try to make a list of rules that will keep the house clean.” Never going to happen. “Let’s put on some relaxing music to keep emotions even.” But the Spotify Chill playlist only has so many songs.

All those kinds of things can contain the chaos for while. But not forever. So eventually we figured out, we need to embrace the chaos. (Actually, Cyndi’s the one who figured that out, and she’s slowly been helping me figure it out.)

She said, “Hey, we’re driving 18 hours a day to get our kids everywhere they need to be? There’s 18 hours where they’re stuck talking to us. Let’s embrace it!”

“We’re driving to the other side of the island 5 days a week for practice? Let’s find a teammate we can carpool with, so we can bless their family. Let’s embrace it, and see how God can use it.”

Solomon and my wife have taught me something profound. If you really want to invest your life in meaningful things? And you’re waiting until the conditions in life are just right? It’s never going to happen.

We need to find ways to use the conditions we’ve got in life to make whatever difference we can in life.