The Arrow in the Quiver

In 2009, a young Haitian-American woman named Michaëlle Jean stood before the United Nations, largely unknown to the global stage. For years she had labored quietly — first as a journalist in Montreal covering stories no one wanted to hear, then as an advocate for women fleeing domestic violence in immigrant communities. There were seasons when she wondered if any of it mattered. Her work felt small, almost invisible, like words swallowed by silence.

But God had been sharpening her like a polished arrow hidden in His quiver.

When a catastrophic earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince in January 2010, Jean — by then Governor General of Canada — became a singular voice for Haiti's forgotten poor. Her lifetime of quiet preparation suddenly had a stage. The woman who had spent decades advocating in obscurity now carried the grief and hope of an entire nation before the watching world.

Isaiah 49 tells us that the Servant of the Lord felt this same tension. "I have labored in vain," he confessed. "I have spent my strength for nothing." Yet the Almighty had plans far exceeding what the Servant imagined — not merely to restore one people, but to become "a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

Your hidden years are not wasted years. Every unseen faithfulness is God fitting the arrow to the string. He who called you from the womb knows exactly when to let it fly.