“Welcome, sir. What can we do for you?”
“I want to check Uni-Jos admission list.”
The young lady collected my number entered it on the portal and then She hesitated for a moment.
Then she said, “Sorry, sir. There is no admission for you.”
Again.
It was the third time.
The third year.
And once again, my name was not on the list.
My dream was to get into the University of Jos.
I had written JAMB.
I had gotten the required cutoff mark and did Post UTME.
In fact, I had scored above it.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three consecutive times.
And still, no admission.
At that point, I didn’t know what else to do.
I Felt the pain of having to wait again for another year.
And honestly, I had done what I thought I was supposed to do. I had met the requirement. I had tried again.
Yet the door remained closed.
And when something you have worked for refuses to happen, especially when you don’t understand why, it can mess with you.
You start asking questions.
“What am I doing wrong?”
“Why is this happening to me?”
“Why are other people moving forward while I’m still here?”
“How long am I going to keep waiting?”
I didn’t know it then, but those years would teach me something I still carry today:
Sometimes a delay is not the end of your story. Sometimes it becomes part of the story that prepares you for what comes next.
Part One: When You Have Done Your Part and the Door Still Doesn’t Open
There is a particular kind of disappointment that comes when you know you tried.
Failure is sometimes easier to understand when you know you didn’t prepare well.
Rejection can be easier to accept when you know you didn’t meet the requirement.
But what happens when you did what you were supposed to do and the result still didn’t come?
That was my situation.
I wanted admission.
I had met the cutoff mark.
I had tried again.
And yet, I was still outside the door.
One year became another.
And another.
At some point, waiting stops feeling like waiting and starts feeling like being left behind.
You watch people you started with move ahead.
Some are already in university.
Some are graduating.
Some are getting jobs.
And you are still trying to figure out what went wrong.
That can be painful.
Especially when you don’t have an explanation.
And I think this is where many people make a dangerous mistake.
They take a delay in one area of their lives and turn it into a conclusion about their entire lives.
“My admission is delayed, so my life is delayed.”
“My career is delayed, so I’m behind.”
“Marriage hasn’t happened, so something must be wrong with me.”
“My business isn’t working, so maybe I don’t have what it takes.”
“The opportunity hasn’t come, so maybe my purpose isn’t real.”
But a closed door is not the same thing as a closed future.
Read this carefully: Being delayed in one area does not mean your entire life has stopped.
I couldn’t see that clearly at the time.
All I could see was the admission I didn’t have.
But something else was happening.
I was beginning to ask questions I might not have asked if everything had gone according to my original plan.
And those questions would eventually take me somewhere deeper.
Part Two: When the Waiting Forces You to Ask Better Questions
After a while, I realised I couldn’t spend my entire life staring at the admission list.
I still wanted admission.
I still wanted to study at the University of Jos.
But I began to understand that I had a choice.
I could spend all my energy asking, “When will this finally happen?”
Or I could start asking, “What can I do with the time I have right now?”
That question changed something in me.
I started looking inward.
I started asking bigger questions about my life.
What am I actually here to do?
What has God put inside me?
What am I naturally drawn toward?
What kind of problems do I care about?
How can I become useful to other people?
Those questions led me into a journey of learning and discovery.
I read.
I prayed.
I studied Scripture.
I listened to people who were ahead of me.
I attended programmes and workshops.
I started paying attention to the things I naturally enjoyed doing.
And slowly, I began to notice patterns.
I enjoyed teaching.
I enjoyed writing.
I enjoyed helping people think through their lives.
I was interested in purpose, growth, relationships and impact.
Things that had seemed ordinary began to look like clues.
And that was when I began to understand something important.
I was waiting, but I didn’t have to be idle.
I was waiting, but I could still be becoming.
There is a difference.
You can wait for an opportunity while doing nothing.
Or you can use the waiting season to increase your capacity for the opportunity you are hoping for.
And sometimes, that is where the real work happens.
The waiting season may not give you what you want immediately, but it can reveal things about you that you were too busy to notice.
It can expose your strengths.
It can expose your weaknesses.
It can introduce you to people.
It can give you time to learn.
It can make you rethink what you thought you wanted.
It can force you to separate your identity from one achievement.
Most importantly, it can make you ask a deeper question:
“Who am I becoming while I wait?”
That question became more important to me than I realised at the time.
Because I was beginning to discover that my purpose was bigger than one admission.
And once you begin to see your life that way, the waiting starts to look different.
Part Three: The Waiting Was Not Empty
Looking back now, I can see something I couldn’t see while I was standing there checking that admission list.
I was measuring progress by whether my name appeared on a list.
But there were things happening in me that no admission list could measure.
I was learning.
I was growing.
I was asking questions.
I was discovering gifts.
I was becoming more aware of what mattered to me.
And eventually, I understood that the years I thought were simply “lost” had become part of my preparation.
I’m not saying that every delay is secretly a blessing.
I’m not saying every closed door means God has something better waiting around the corner.
Life is not always that simple.
Sometimes systems fail.
Sometimes people make decisions that affect us.
Sometimes circumstances are outside our control.
Sometimes we make mistakes.
And sometimes we simply have to wait.
But even when you cannot control the reason for your delay, you can decide what you will do with the season.
That is the part you can control.
You may not be able to control the waiting, but you can control whether the waiting changes you.
That is why I no longer see waiting simply as a period when nothing is happening.
Sometimes something is happening beneath the surface.
You are building capacity.
You are developing character.
You are learning something.
You are meeting people.
You are becoming clearer.
You are discovering what you can contribute.
You are preparing for responsibilities you cannot carry yet.
And sometimes, you are discovering that the thing you were waiting for was never the whole story.
What Do You Do When Your Purpose Seems Delayed?
Now let’s bring this back to you.
Because perhaps your waiting season doesn’t look anything like mine.
Maybe you’re waiting for admission.
Maybe you’re waiting for a job.
Maybe you’re waiting for marriage.
Maybe you’re waiting for your business to finally become profitable.
Maybe you’re waiting for someone to recognise your gift.
Maybe you’re waiting for an opportunity that you believe will finally allow you to step fully into your purpose.
Whatever it is, don’t let the waiting convince you that you have nothing to do.
1. Keep Learning
Use the season.
Read the book.
Take the course.
Learn the skill.
Listen to people who are already doing what you want to do.
Ask questions.
Study.
Don’t arrive at the opportunity unprepared because you spent the entire waiting season complaining that it had not arrived.
2. Develop the Gifts You Already Have
Don’t bury your gifts simply because nobody is paying attention to them yet.
If you can write, write.
If you can teach, teach.
If you can organise, organise.
If you can speak, speak.
If you can encourage people, encourage them.
If you can build, build.
You don’t need a huge audience before your gift becomes useful.
Start with what is in your hands.
3. Pay Attention to the Clues
What keeps drawing your attention?
What problems do you naturally notice?
What do people often ask you for help with?
What kind of work makes you feel useful?
What do you keep returning to even after you’ve tried other things?
These questions won’t give you a perfect formula for finding your purpose.
But they can help you notice patterns.
And sometimes purpose becomes clearer when you stop trying to force an answer and start paying attention to what keeps showing up.
If you are still trying to understand your purpose, this is a good place to interlink to your post about how to discover your purpose.
4. Start Where You Are
One of the biggest mistakes we make is waiting for the perfect opportunity before we begin.
“When I get the job, then I’ll start.”
“When I get money, then I’ll build.”
“When I get the platform, then I’ll speak.”
“When I get admission, then I’ll take myself seriously.”
Don’t wait for everything to be perfect.
Start small.
Help one person.
Write one article.
Teach one person.
Build one small thing.
Have one meaningful conversation.
Small beginnings still count.
5. Stop Measuring Your Life Against Somebody Else’s Timeline
This is difficult, especially when everybody seems to be moving.
Someone gets the job.
Someone gets married.
Someone starts a business.
Someone gets the opportunity you have been praying about.
Someone younger than you seems to be doing everything you hoped to do by now.
And suddenly you feel behind.
But please remember this:
Someone else’s timeline is not a deadline for your life.
You don’t have to rush into the wrong thing because someone else got there first.
You don’t have to despise your preparation because someone else’s results are already visible.
There is room for your story too.
Maybe You Are Not Behind
Sometimes we think progress must always look visible.
We want the certificate.
We want the job.
We want the announcement.
We want the open door.
We want something we can point to and say, “See? I’m moving.”
But some of the most important progress in life is invisible for a while.
A seed can be underground for a long time before anyone sees a plant.
That doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
Roots are forming.
Something is developing.
The foundation is being established.
Your life can have seasons like that too.
You may not have the result yet.
But perhaps you are becoming more capable.
Perhaps you are becoming wiser.
Perhaps you are learning what you didn’t know before.
Perhaps you are developing the character you will need for the next chapter.
Perhaps you are discovering your purpose in a way you couldn’t have discovered it if everything had happened on your preferred schedule.
So don’t confuse “not yet” with “never.”
What I Would Tell That Younger Version of Me
If I could go back to that young man standing in front of the admission list for the third time, I don’t think I would tell him, “Don’t worry, everything will work out.”
Sometimes you don’t need a cliché when you’re hurting.
You need someone to acknowledge that it hurts.
It was disappointing.
It was frustrating.
I wanted that admission.
I wanted to move forward.
And I didn’t understand why it wasn’t happening.
But I would also tell him this:
“Don’t waste this season.”
If the door isn’t open yet, learn.
Grow.
Pray.
Read.
Ask better questions.
Develop your gifts.
Serve somebody.
Build something.
Prepare yourself.
Keep moving where you can.
Don’t allow one closed door to convince you that your life has no direction.
If You Feel Like Your Purpose Is Taking Too Long
I want to speak directly now.
Maybe you’ve been waiting for a long time.
Longer than you expected.
Maybe you’ve tried more than once.
Maybe you’ve watched people who started after you move ahead of you.
Maybe you are tired of answering the same questions from family and friends.
Maybe you’re beginning to wonder whether your dream is still worth pursuing.
I understand why you’re tired.
But please don’t make a permanent conclusion from a temporary season.
You don’t know everything that the next chapter will bring.
And you don’t need to know everything today.
What you can do is use today well.
Learn something.
Develop something.
Help someone.
Pray.
Build relationships.
Ask questions.
Prepare.
And keep going.
Because your life is not standing still simply because one thing hasn’t happened yet.
My admission was delayed.
But my life wasn’t over.
I thought I was waiting for a university admission.
But in that waiting, I was also being introduced to questions that would eventually shape how I understood purpose.
I thought I was losing time.
But some of that time was becoming part of my preparation.
I thought the story had stopped.
It hadn’t.
It was simply taking a turn I couldn’t see yet.
And perhaps that is where you are right now.
You may not be where you thought you would be.
You may not have what you hoped you would have by now.
You may be looking at your life and wondering whether you have fallen behind.
But please don’t give up on yourself.
Don’t let someone else’s speed make you hate your journey.
Don’t let one closed door convince you that there are no more doors.
And don’t spend so much time wishing for the next chapter that you waste the one you are currently living.
Use this season.
Grow in this season.
Serve in this season.
Build in this season.
Become in this season.
Because one day, you may look back at the season you desperately wanted to escape and realise that it was not empty after all.
It was shaping you.
It was teaching you.
It was making you ask better questions.
It was preparing you.
And when the next door finally opens, I hope you won’t just be excited that it opened.
I hope you will be ready to walk through it.
Delay is not necessarily denial.
Your waiting season may not look like progress right now.
But don’t waste it.
Keep becoming the person who can carry what you are praying for.
And if you have been waiting for a long time, I hope you know this:
You are not forgotten. Your story is not finished. Keep going.
