All my life, I’ve wanted a pool. I always looked forward to vacations that included pools and going over to swim at friends’ houses in the summer. Sometimes, I may have even been a little jealous. Okay, maybe a lot jealous. Well, a year ago my parents moved into a house with a pool. I was so excited! My dreams were coming true after a decade of wishing. When I finally laid eyes on our pool, it was a nine-feet-deep oval of perfection. I could hardly wait to spend every spare moment soaking up the sun.

However, this morning as I was sitting next to the pool watching my mom vacuum it, add chlorine and other chemicals, take the 150-pound pump apart and wash the algae off of it (all things that I have had to help with at various times throughout the summer) for the billionth time, I realized that I had gotten exactly what I had wanted as a child…and all of the work that went with it. Sure, our pool is great and definitely doesn’t disappoint on blistering summer days, but is it really worth two or more hours of work every single day and all the money it takes to buy supplies for upkeep just so I can swim in it a couple of times a week?

I am in no way trying to tell you not to get a pool if you want one, or that we are getting rid of ours, but I think that there’s a bigger lesson to be learned here. Sometimes, we want things in life that we never get, or that we don’t get for a very long time. It could be something as small as that dress you saw in that one store that one time that you didn’t have enough money, or it could be as big as that job that you were just sure was your dream job but you didn’t get. Sometimes life is disappointing and/or doesn’t happen like we think it should. Sometimes, we don’t get what we want, and that’s okay. Sometimes, it’s a good thing.

As much as we all want to, we can’t see the future. We can’t know what would happen if we were allowed to have what we wanted at the moment we wanted it. Fortunately for us, there is someone who knows and is watching out for us. Jeremiah 29:11 says:

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

No, I do not think that God was withholding a pool from me all these years, but I do think that He knows what’s best for us and that He gives us what we need at the exact moment that we need it. I can’t even count the number of times in my life that I have prayed and prayed for something that I thought I needed and never got it, only to find out later (sometimes years later) that I not only didn’t need it, but that I shouldn’t even have wanted it because God had something a thousand times better waiting for me.

Next time you’re stressing over that relationship that’s not progressing as fast as you would like or that internship that didn’t work out, remember that we don’t always get what we want, but God always gives us what we need.