Waiting on the World to Change

John Mayer is a world-class musician and one of the most original and imaginative lyricists of our time. In 2006, Mayer released his Continuum album featuring one of my favorite songs, Waiting on the World to Change. You’ve likely heard it.

I love this line; “Now we see everything that’s going wrong with the world and those who lead it. We just feel like we don’t have the means to rise above and beat it. So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change.”

Hard to believe that since the release of this song in 2006, we’ve had three US Presidents, Twitter was founded, Saddam Hussein was executed, Apple released the iPhone, the US fell into a recession, the death of Osama Bin Laden, a devastating earthquake in Haiti, and the list goes on…

The world keeps spinning and rotating around the sun. Days turn to months and months turn to years and here we are today. Every day good things happen and bad things happen all around the world and whether we are there to witness them, hear of them or even exist for them, the circle of life will continue and time keeps marching on.

Certainly, the brevity of life hits all of us at one point or another and there is an accompanying heaviness associated with this reality, even despite one’s eternal worldview. Still, none of us are promised a “full deck” when we land here. Humanity is a fascinating subject to me. We are “dropped” into this world with no say as to where, when or by whom. I like to refer to this as The Great Cosmic Human Lottery. I mean, of all places and times in history, what are the odds that I would be born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most beautiful, wealthy, temperate, innovative, educated, safe and privileged places on earth and at the exact same moment in history someone else was born in Aleppo, Syria, one of the darkest, most dangerous, oppressive, volatile and harsh places on earth. One could argue I won life’s celestial PowerBall! If you’re reading this, you likely did as well. You get my point. 

As I am writing this, I’m reminded of a powerful verse in Luke 12:48(b) which reads, “ When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.” 

Have you been blessed with much? Are you being responsible with all that has been entrusted to you? That includes not only your material possessions but also everything that has been entrusted to you (your money, your career, your spouse, your children, your time, etc.). I believe each of us is being called up to service, like a young man receiving a draft notice to serve his country in a time of war. Those who are willing to heed this call will find real life and those who squander their gifts and sit on their hands will find themselves frustrated and waiting for the world to change, which in time, we all come to realize that it really doesn’t. Of course there are advances in technology and medicine, etc. but people are people and we are all after the same thing at the end of the day; a sense of purpose or calling and to be deeply known and loved.

To paraphrase John Mayer, are you passively looking at everything that’s going on in the world today feeling disturbed and “waiting for the world to change” or are you embracing the great call on your life to proactively rise up and embrace, with deep gratitude, all of your many blessings and then begin to be the change that the world so desperately needs. 

Let’s go get it!