“He was to train them for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.”

— Daniel 1:5 (NIV)

Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody wants wisdom. Everybody wants experience. Everybody wants to be the person everyone else turns to when something goes wrong.

But there’s one little problem.

Nobody wants to spend the time getting there.

We live in a world where we can microwave dinner in three minutes, order something online and have it delivered tomorrow, and find an answer to almost any question in seconds.

And somewhere along the way, we started believing that success, wisdom, and experience should work the same way.

We want thirty years of experience by the time we’re twenty-five. We want the six-figure salary before we’ve developed the six-figure skills. We want the promotion before we’ve mastered the position we’re already in.

We want God to open doors we haven’t even prepared ourselves to walk through.

And when it doesn’t happen fast enough?

We get frustrated.

We blame our employer. We blame our circumstances. We blame the economy. Sometimes we even blame God.

But here’s a question worth asking.

What have you actually done to prepare yourself for what you’re asking God to give you?

Even the King Understood Preparation

I was reading Daniel chapter 1, and something jumped out at me that I think we could all learn from.

King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered that some of the finest young men from Israel be brought into his service. These weren’t just random guys pulled off the street. They were selected for their intelligence, abilities, and potential.

But here’s the interesting part.

Even though they were already considered exceptional, the king didn’t immediately put them to work.

He ordered them to be trained for three years.

Three years!

This was a king who had enormous power, tremendous wealth, and an entire kingdom at his disposal. He could have demanded that these young men start working immediately.

Instead, he understood something we seem to have forgotten.

Potential isn’t the same thing as preparation.

The king wanted the best people serving him, but he understood that even talented people needed time to develop.

Now think about how we operate today.

We hire somebody on Monday, train them on Tuesday, and by Friday we’re wondering why they aren’t performing like the person who retired after thirty years.

Or maybe we’re the employee who has been on the job six months and is already frustrated because we haven’t been promoted to management.

We’ve barely learned where they keep the extra printer paper, but we’re ready to run the company!

I’m exaggerating a little.

But not much.

Stop Expecting Everybody Else to Invest in You

Here’s where this gets uncomfortable.

We want knowledge, wisdom, and experience, but how often are we actually willing to invest in ourselves to get them?

We go to work and expect our employer to pay for every training class, every certification, every conference, and every opportunity to learn.

Now don’t get me wrong. Good employers should invest in their people. Great leaders help others grow.

But when did your personal development become somebody else’s responsibility?

If your employer won’t pay for a class that could make you better at your job, does that mean you shouldn’t take it?

If nobody offers to mentor you, does that mean you can’t find someone worth learning from?

If you want to become a better leader, are you reading books, studying leadership, asking questions, and learning from people who have already accomplished what you’re trying to accomplish?

Or are you sitting around waiting for somebody to hand you an opportunity?

The same thing happens in church.

We show up on Sunday, listen to the pastor, sing a few songs, and expect to become spiritually mature.

Then we wonder why we struggle to hear God’s direction in our lives.

Well, let me ask you something.

When was the last time you opened your Bible outside of church?

When was the last time you spent thirty minutes studying Scripture instead of scrolling through Facebook?

When was the last time you invested in your relationship with God without expecting your pastor, your spouse, or somebody else to do the work for you?

Going to church is important. But expecting to grow spiritually by attending church once a week without doing anything the other six days is like expecting to get in shape by watching somebody else work out.

You might learn a few things.

But you’re probably not going to build much muscle.

And yes, I’m talking to myself here, too.

A Degree Doesn’t Automatically Make You Wise

We also have this idea that education and wisdom are the same thing.

They’re not.

You can spend years in a classroom, collect degrees, and still have absolutely no idea how to handle real-world problems.

And you can spend years working with your hands, building businesses, raising families, making mistakes, and learning from people around you and develop tremendous wisdom.

I’m not against education. I’m against confusing a piece of paper with actual ability.

Education can be valuable. But a degree doesn’t automatically make you a leader, a great employee, a successful business owner, or a wise person.

And neither does experience alone.

You can do something wrong for twenty years and call it twenty years of experience.

That doesn’t make you an expert.

It just means you’ve had a lot of practice doing it wrong!

Real growth requires humility.

It requires being willing to admit you don’t know everything.

It requires listening to people who know more than you, learning from your mistakes, and sometimes spending your own money and your own time to get better.

And here’s the part people don’t like.

Sometimes becoming the person you want to be requires sacrificing things you enjoy today.

Maybe that means watching less television.

Maybe it means getting up an hour earlier.

Maybe it means spending money on a book, a course, or training instead of something else you wanted.

Maybe it means accepting that you’re not ready for the next level yet.

That’s not failure.

That’s preparation.

Daniel Didn’t Just Get Lucky

Now let’s go back to Daniel.

After those three years of preparation, Daniel and his friends were brought before the king.

And what happened?

Daniel 1:20 tells us that when the king questioned them about matters of wisdom and understanding, he found them ten times better than the magicians and enchanters throughout his kingdom.

Ten times!

That’s pretty impressive.

But there’s something important we cannot overlook.

Daniel 1:17 tells us that God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding.

They went through the preparation, but God was the source of their exceptional wisdom.

I think that’s an important distinction.

We have a responsibility to learn, prepare, study, and grow. But we also need to remember where our gifts and abilities come from.

We shouldn’t become so impressed with our own accomplishments that we forget the God who made them possible.

Daniel didn’t have to choose between hard work and trusting God.

He did both.

And that’s exactly what we should be doing.

Pray for wisdom.

Then open a book.

Pray for a better opportunity.

Then develop the skills to handle it.

Pray to become a better husband, wife, parent, employee, or leader.

Then start learning how to become one.

Don’t ask God to make you wiser while refusing to learn anything new.

That’s like asking God to help you lose weight while you’re sitting on the couch eating an entire bag of Oreos.

Could God perform a miracle?

Absolutely.

But maybe He’s waiting for you to put down the cookies and go for a walk.

Maybe the Waiting Is the Blessing

Here’s something else I think we need to consider.

Sometimes we get frustrated because God hasn’t given us what we’ve been praying for.

We want the promotion.

We want the successful business.

We want the financial freedom.

We want the opportunity to lead.

And we want it now.

But what if we’re not ready?

What if God knows that giving us everything we’re asking for today would actually hurt us because we haven’t developed the character, wisdom, or discipline to handle it?

Think about that.

Sometimes the greatest blessing isn’t getting what you want.

Sometimes the greatest blessing is having enough time to become the person who can handle it.

Those three years in Daniel weren’t wasted years.

They were preparation years.

And maybe that’s exactly where you are right now.

Maybe you’re working a job you don’t love.

Maybe you’re building a business that isn’t growing as fast as you’d hoped.

Maybe you’re trying to improve your marriage, your leadership, or your relationship with God, and it feels like you’re making very little progress.

Don’t assume nothing is happening.

You might be learning things today that you’ll desperately need five years from now.

You might be developing patience, discipline, humility, or wisdom that will make all the difference when the next opportunity arrives.

But here’s the catch.

You have to be willing to participate in the process.

You can’t just sit around and call it waiting on God when you’re really avoiding the work.

There’s a difference between patience and laziness.

And sometimes we Christians are pretty good at dressing up laziness in spiritual language.

“I’m just waiting on God’s timing.”

Okay.

But what are you doing while you’re waiting?

Are you preparing?

Are you learning?

Are you growing?

Or are you sitting on your happy butt expecting God to do everything for you?

Because those are two very different things.

Be Thankful for the Preparation

As we enter November and start thinking about Thanksgiving, I want to challenge you to look at gratitude a little differently.

It’s easy to thank God for the promotion, the new house, the successful business, or the answered prayer.

But what about the preparation?

What about the difficult boss who taught you patience?

What about the business that failed but taught you lessons you never would have learned otherwise?

What about the season when you had to work harder, study longer, and sacrifice more than you wanted?

What about the prayers God hasn’t answered yet?

Can you be thankful for those things, too?

I’m not saying every difficult situation is something God deliberately placed in your life. But I do believe He can use our challenges to teach us, strengthen us, and prepare us for what’s ahead.

Romans 5:3–4 reminds us that suffering can produce perseverance, character, and hope.

That’s not always a comfortable process.

In fact, sometimes it flat-out stinks.

But growth usually does require discomfort.

You don’t build muscle without resistance.

You don’t become a better leader without facing challenges.

And you don’t develop wisdom by avoiding every difficult situation life throws your way.

So maybe instead of asking God why you’re not further along, you should ask Him what He’s trying to teach you right where you are.

Maybe instead of complaining that nobody is investing in you, it’s time to start investing in yourself.

And maybe instead of rushing through this season, you should thank God for the opportunity to prepare.

Because here’s what I want you to remember.

You can’t microwave wisdom.

You can’t skip the lessons, avoid the work, refuse to make sacrifices, and then expect to have the knowledge and experience of someone who spent years developing them.

Daniel and his friends spent three years preparing before standing before the king.

And when their moment came, they were ready.

God gave them wisdom, and they had been faithful through the preparation.

So stop trying to rush the process.

Put God first.

Invest in yourself.

Do the work.

And trust that God can use what you’re learning today to prepare you for what comes tomorrow.

God First. Life Next.

Take Action

This week, identify one area of your life where you want to grow but haven’t been willing to invest the time, money, or effort.

Maybe it’s your career, your business, your marriage, your leadership, or your relationship with God.

Now do something about it.

Buy the book. Sign up for the class. Find a mentor. Open your Bible. Ask somebody to teach you something. Set aside thirty minutes every day to develop a skill.

Don’t wait for your employer, your church, your spouse, or somebody else to make the investment for you.

Take ownership of your growth, and thank God for the opportunity to prepare.