I’m literally sitting in the passenger seat of my car while I write this (in true Packing Light style). It’s nearly 10 o’clock at night, and Darrell and I are speeding through West Virginia, headed to our next destination.

Our car is so full of stuff that a woman stopped us in a Walmart parking lot earlier this afternoon to ask us what we were doing.

I’m just trying to paint a really clear picture here.

And if you know anything about me, you know I’m not very much of a night owl — especially when it comes to writing.

I’d prefer to wake up at 4 a.m. to write over staying awake until 10 p.m. But the past few weeks have been packed with activity and family in from out of town and the Packing Light release party, and a trip to Chicago for my grandma’s 90th birthday, and moving out of our apartment, and oh yeah … all the work we normally do for our clients and for Prodigal.

So I’ve had to take advantage of every spare minute available to me. There is no time to waste. I can’t wait until we arrive tonight to get these words onto paper, and I can’t wait until the morning, although that would be ideal.

There is no better time than now.

It’s so easy to put stuff off to tomorrow, isn’t it?

There’s always an excuse, and often it’s a really good one. I’m tired. I should rest. It isn’t really convenient to type in the front seat of my car. It would be easier and more comfortable to rest now and work later.

There isn’t money …

Work is busy …

My stomach hurts …

Next week, next month, next year will be better …

And of course, I believe there is a time for rest and for saving and for waiting and for sleeping and taking care of yourself and for just being present. But I also see how often our “excuses” are just a cover-up for fear — just an obstacle in the way of getting what we really want. At least that’s how it is for me.

And the thing I’m learning is that the excuses — the feeling like “tomorrow will be easier,” the sense that there will be a better time, a more comfortable time, a more convenient time — never goes away, no matter our circumstances.

They’ll always be there, nagging you, trying to talk you out of the work that needs to be done.

You might as well get to writing … in the front seat of the car.

So often we expect life to get easier.

But it doesn’t. It only gets more complicated. We expect space to open up in front of us, doors to swing wide open when it’s “time.”

We expect money to set itself aside.

We expect resources to appear out of nowhere.

But here’s the thing I’m discovering in my own journey: time and space and money don’t ever make themselves available. They don’t ever just magically appear in front of us. If we want our time and space and resources to go toward the things that really matter to us, we have to arrange them that way.

We have to move things around, and make room for the really important things to fit in.

On the journey of life, there’s only so much room in our suitcase. We have to choose what to keep and what to leave behind.

And when it comes to choosing, there’s no better time than now.

I’m not sure what you want — if it’s a job or a home or a family or a community of people or a dream God has gifted to you — but no matter what it is, there’s no better time than now to admit you want it. There’s no better time to get started.

There’s no better time to discover what is getting in your way.

There’s no better time to let it go.

There’s no better time to get to writing in the passenger seat of your car.

It’s not convenient. It isn’t ideal. It’s cramped and you can’t sit up straight and you feel a little carsick, and your shoulders are slumped over so that they feel a little sore. But tomorrow will have discomforts of its own.

It will not get easier. It will only get harder.

There’s no better time than now.

What do you want out of your life? What’s stopping you from going after it?

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