The Myth of ‘Someday’

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I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of dreams about “someday.”

“Someday I’ll do this.”

“Someday I’ll do that.”

“Someday, someday, someday … .”

But as Mary Hulst, current university pastor at my alma mater, Calvin University, and former preaching professor at my other alma mater, Calvin Theological Seminary, once said, “Someday never comes unless you start today.”

To this day, that’s still some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

Start Today

I was sitting in a class on the spiritual disciplines (all those historic practices and habits of the Christian life, such as Scripture, prayer, sabbath, silence, solitude, etc.) during my first semester at Calvin Seminary. It was all about how we, as future pastors and ministry workers in the Christian Reformed Church, needed to be spiritually disciplined in our own lives so that we could lead others to be spiritually disciplined in theirs.

Now, to be honest, I couldn’t tell you exactly what Mary was talking about that day (sorry, Mary!). She was a guest lecturer and probably talking about one of the many spiritual disciplines our professor had introduced us to over the course of the semester.

But I do remember that quote. During Hust’s lecture, she paused and said something along the lines of:

We all dream about “someday.” Someday I’ll do this. Someday I’ll do that. Someday I’ll be this way or accomplish that thing. Here’s the thing: “Someday” is a myth. It never comes. Or at least it never comes unless you start today. You need to start actually doing it. Whatever it is you want to do someday—whether it’s taking up running or going to the gym or learning to cook or spending more time with your kids or reading more books or starting a weekly date night with your spouse—whatever it is, go home and do it today. Don’t think you’ll have more time or ability or energy to do it someday. Life will always be busy. It will always be hard. There will always be something else that takes up your time and energy and distracts you from what you want to do. Just, whatever it is, whatever you dream of doing someday, go home and start doing it today. —Mary Hulst, fall of 2010

I’ve come back to that advice over and over and over again in my life.

The Spiritual Disciplines

Although it’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received, it didn’t have an immediate impact on my life.

At least, it didn’t have an immediate impact on my faith life.

Truth be told, I did go home that night and download P90X (the famous Tony Horton video workout program) and start working out regularly. That was the immediate impact of Mary’s advice on my life.

But I didn’t start incorporating a regular habit of the spiritual disciplines into my life (which was probably the point she was trying to make). Instead, it’s been a long and winding road for me with the spiritual disciplines. There have been times when I’ve experimented and dabbled with them and practiced them (often in an inconsistent and haphazard way), and there have been times when I haven’t.

But for the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to practice the spiritual disciplines more intentionally. And I’m starting to see their fruit. “Someday I’ll have a morning quiet time,” I used to tell myself. “Someday I’ll pray more.” “Someday I’ll go on a silent retreat and practice the disciplines of silence and solitude.” Well, now I do. And just like with downloading P90X and starting to work out all those years ago, “someday” for the spiritual disciplines has started to become today for me, too.

The same can be the case for you. If you keep thinking, “Someday I’ll give this spiritual discipline a try or do that thing in my relationship with God,” start now. Start today. As Mary said all those years ago, “Someday never comes unless you start today.”

Maybe try making “someday” today with the things you want to do in your relationship with God.

(If you’d like to read more about the spiritual disciplines, a few resources I’d recommend are Lauren Winner’s book, Mudhouse Sabbath; Adele Ahlberg Calhoun’s The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook; and John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. All three offer accessible, practical overviews of the spiritual disciplines and how they work and form us as Christians in our day-to-day faith lives.)