Now what?

the question that woke me up at 12:30 a.m.

It’s official.

We’ve moved.

We said lots of good-byes.

We had lots of lasts.

Including one final hangout in my favorite airport in the world.

We made the long flight one more time.

And now we’re here—on the other side of it.

I’m pretty sure I’ve got no tears left in the tank at this point.

For months, people have been asking me the same question:

“So... what’s next?”

I’ve been kinda vague at times.

Not because I didn’t have ideas.

But because I kept telling myself there would be time to think about that later.

Let’s just get through the move.

Let’s just finish the school year.

Let’s just make it onto the plane.

Let’s just get settled.

We’ll figure it out when we get there.

Well...

A few nights ago at 12:30 a.m., I realized we were officially “there.”

The move was over.

My last paycheck had come and gone.

My last day of work was behind me.

For the first time in a long time, there wasn’t a clearly defined next step waiting for me in the morning.

And that’s when it hit.

Now what?

The question woke me up.

Then, kept me up.

Two emotions arrived at exactly the same time.

Fear and excitement.

I love it when these two come bundled. It means you’re doing something outside your comfort zone so interesting that you’re excited to be uncomfortable.

As I lay there staring at the ceiling feeling these, another thought surfaced.

The Parable of the Talents.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, a master entrusts his servants with a portion of his wealth before leaving on a journey. Two of them invest what they’ve been given and multiply it. One buries it in the ground because he’s afraid of losing it.

The story isn’t really about money.

It’s about stewardship.

It’s about what you do with what you’ve been given.

And for whatever reason, at 12:30 in the morning, those two thoughts collided.

Now what?

And...

What are you going to do with what you’ve been given?

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

And because my mind is really jumping all over the place, I began thinking about death.

Over the last few months, we’ve had several deaths orbiting our family.

Leah and I both lost our last remaining grandparents and we’ve had friends who have also experienced significant losses.

I’ve listened to my parents talk about cleaning out homes and sorting through a lifetime of possessions.

And while those possessions certainly mattered at one time, they also served as a reminder that eventually all of it stays behind.

The furniture.

The collections.

The keepsakes.

The stuff.

What remains are the people we loved, the lives we impacted, and the experiences that shaped us.

More than anything, these past few months have reminded me that seasons are temporary.

My kids will only be these ages once.

We’ll only get one first year after making a move like this.

I’ll only get one opportunity to take this particular swing.

And suddenly, the question wasn’t simply:

Now what?

The question became:

How can I make this moment in time, this season, something worthwhile?

Because if I’m being honest, I don’t think the greatest risk in front of me is failure.

I think it’s default living.

There’s an old warning that if you’re not careful, you’ll spend decades living the same year over and over again.

That thought has been rattling around in my head lately.

I don’t want this year to be one more year.

I want it to be a different kind of year.

A year where we intentionally create experiences that bring us closer together as a family.

A year where we say yes to things we’ll still be talking about twenty years from now.

A year where we leave behind autopilot and become more deliberate about how we spend our time, attention, and energy.

And professionally?

I keep coming back to the same stewardship question.

For years, Keep Asking has existed around the edges of my life.

Early mornings.

Summer breaks.

Weekends.

The spaces between everything else.

Now, for the first time, I have the opportunity to go all-in.

And, I don’t want to look back twenty years from now wondering what would’ve happened if I had fully committed to the gifts, opportunities, relationships, and ideas I’ve been given.

I want this to be my Parable of the Talents year.

I want to take what I’ve been given and put it to work.

I want to lean into my strengths.

I want to serve students, families, and young adults.

I want to build something meaningful.

I want to see what happens when faith becomes action.

And maybe that’s what this question is really about.

Not:

“What’s next?”

But:

“What are you going to do with what you’ve been given?”

Because whether we realize it or not, all of us are stewards of something.

Time.

Relationships.

Opportunities.

Talents.

Resources.

Influence.

A season of life.

The question is what we do with them.

So, at 12:30 a.m. on the first day of this new season I wrestled with all of these thoughts and feelings and came out the other side still feeling fear and excitement AND a surge of energy to tackle the season ahead.

It’s time to stop living by default.

It’s time to see what happens when we intentionally invest what we’ve been given.

And 20 years from now, I hope we can look back and say:

That year changed us in all the ways we needed.

---

What about you?

You don’t have to leave your job to live more intentionally, to live your own “parable of the talents” year. You can do that right now, right where you are.

What’s going to be different because you read this?

Now what?

Keep Asking,

Kyle

P.S. In case you missed the origin story of this new adventure - check out the original post, “Why I’m Stepping Away from my Dream Job”