Waiting For Green Lights? Read This.

I read Bob Goff’s Everyone Always a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of those books that should be required reading. I may sound dramatic, but Everyone Always changed my life. Bob’s writing – I’ve decided we’re on a first name basis and best friends now – was laugh out loud funny at times, but it was his ability to take a moment from his everyday (admittedly extraordinary) life and turn it into a teaching opportunity on faith. It didn’t take long for one of those lessons to show up in my own life. 

I had a big idea for a side hustle. It came about in a way that made me bookmark it as more than one of the many passing thoughts I have in a given day. Because that’s how I’m wired – I have a lot of ideas, thoughts about things I want to start and do and be. Most of them are fleeting ideas, but once in a while, one of them stands out. This one stood out.

It started with a conversation with my best friend about life. Both of us have full-time jobs we love, jobs we’ve worked hard for, opportunities we’ve earned. Yet we also have a myriad of other interests and things we want to do with our lives. I lamented that I wished I had more time to do the things I love instead of trying to fit them all in between hours spent at work and running errands and being a human. I just want to do so many things! See: those myriad ideas mentioned above. My brain never, ever turns off. 

Later that day, I was with another friend from another walk of life and she made an off the cuff comment that happened to be exactly in line with what I’d been discussing that morning. It happened to echo something I’d thought about doing in quiet moments for years. Am I sounding vague enough yet? I know. Bear with me for today’s post, please? 

The wheels started to spin. When God wants you to do something, He will get real loud about it and I’m not one who believes in coincidences. Surely this idea of mine was something I’m supposed to explore. 

Driving to work on Tuesday – or more accurately, sitting on the interstate not moving thanks to the usual I-24 accident we can’t seem to go more than a day without – I had a sudden inspiration for the name of this endeavor. Later in the day, when there was a break in my meeting schedule and I needed to tap out of work for a moment for my mental health, I checked to see if the URL was available. 

It is. 

I didn’t buy it. 

I prayed about it instead. I’m trying to be more diligent about that – asking God for His input and direction. I’ve been praying for God’s best in my life as of late and I’ve noted that He’s been doing some subtle house cleaning, removing things and people from my life that aren’t serving me. So I prayed. Is this His best? Is it in line with my purpose? Is this something He can use me through? 

I did what I always do when seeking confirmation. I asked for a sign. 

The sign didn’t come. 

So I asked again, this time with a layered “but if it is not something I’m supposed to do, send me this other thing instead.” Because you know, confirmation and all. Let me know, God. One way or another. In the meantime, I’ll just chill out right here, doing nothing, waiting for your input. 

There were no signs. No “yes, do it” or no “no, don’t do it.” I was frustrated. 

Then I thought about Bob and his story about green lights. 

Bob is a pilot among his many talents. In Everybody Always, he tells a story about preparing to land his plane, only to realize he didn’t have all three of the green lights that indicated his landing gear was prepared for landing. He only had two and the missing light was the one that would tell him the front gear was ready to go to work. Landing without the front landing gear was not an ideal scenario for obvious reasons. 

He followed procedure. He flew past the tower so they could try to see if his front landing gear had deployed and it was just a malfunction of his dashboard. They couldn’t determine if the gear was out or not. So he flew by again with the same result. He went through the list of troubleshooting options, exhausted them all, and finally, had no choice but to try to land the plane, possibly without all of his landing gear, something that would come with high risks.  

He landed the plane. 

The gear was fully out and functioning. 

At the end of it, the green light didn’t light up because the bulb was burnt out. 

A burned out lightbulb caused all that worry. Two green lights instead of three kept him in the air for an extended time, kept him from landing the plane. 

Bob writes: 

What I’ve come to learn so far about my faith is Jesus never asked anyone to play it safe. We were born to be brave. There’s a difference between playing it safe and being safe. A lot of people think playing it safe and waiting for all the answers before they move forward is the opposite of dangerous. I disagree. If our life and our identity is found in Jesus, I think we can redefine safe as staying close to him. Don’t get me wrong. Playing it safe and waiting for assurances in our lives isn’t necessarily bad; it just isn’t faith anymore. 

Read this part again: 

We were born to be brave. There’s a difference between playing it safe and being safe. 

Pretty incredible thought, huh? Bob was so busy playing it safe in the airplane – with good reason – that he forgot his faith. He had to land the plane one way or another. He couldn’t fly around forever, debating the lack of three green lights. He had to trust that it would work out. He had to have faith in the outcome. 

He also writes: 

Playing it safe doesn’t move us forward or help us grow; it just finds us where we are and leaves us in the same condition it found us in. 

That line leveled me. I’ve been exploring the ways in which playing it safe has been holding me back – because I assure you, I have played it safe in several areas of my life for a very long time – and that single line grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Wake up!” it screamed. “Stop being so safe all the time!” 

I thought back to this green lights story as I pondered my next steps this weekend. I was waiting for my own series of three items, specifically chosen so I’d know them if I saw them and know I should proceed. I was also on the lookout for a fourth item, also specifically chosen, that would say nope, not this one, let this idea pass you by. 

One more quote from Bob: 

Most of us want more green lights than we have. It’s easy to forget that our faith, life, and experiences are all the green lights we need. What we need to do is stop circling the field and get the plane on the ground. 

I was sitting on go, waiting for my own green lights instead of landing my metaphorical plane. I was ignoring my best friend’s text that came every few days: “Did you buy that URL yet?” I was loitering at the yellow light, if you will, trying to decide if I was going to slam to a stop before it turned red, or give the accelerator a little gas to keep moving. 

I’m buying the URL. I’m setting up an email address and I’m securing the social media accounts. I’m trusting the gut feeling – and all the ways my friends have unknowingly encouraged me – and pursuing this in the new year. 

Green lights or no. 

Before I leave you, allow me to link to Bob Goff’s Everyone Always one more time. This is your green light to pick up a copy for yourself and maybe one for a friend, too. It may just change your life.