It's
Tuesday morning. 6AM. As i look out
at the landscape of my day, i see a crazy schedule. If i just give it a glance, i see lots of
people who will have all kinds of problems and schedule that is fast paced to
say the least...i see 3 kids and a wife who have all kinds of things to do and
accomplish and schedules to follow and keep...i see a multiple different groups
that we lead and have things coming up and if i am not careful, the task list
begins to spiral in my mind - getting bigger and bigger (or as Doctor Seuss
would say, biggerer and biggerer), threatening to drown out all semblance of
anything else and make me a slave to its domination. I see all these things have their place in my
life and there is a purpose in each of them.
I have chosen to place them in the day - but together they form this
tornado that threatens to take me far away from what together in my life they
were supposed to be, to wreak havoc on the very purpose of life! You see, i feel this need to do it all
well. i want to succeed and thrive and
work hard and not fail - and this
drives me to do too many things sometimes...
So, here
i sit, talking to God in the beginning of my day, asking Him to bring His
perspective to the moments of this day.
Asking Him to help me to not be dominated by my need to always do
everything right and good and betterer.
Asking Him to help me to remember that it is not the schedule or the
success that is the key to this being a wonderful day, but the people who are
in the middle of it all. In fact, if
this is to be a wonderful day, i need to be ready to shirk the drive of the
schedule and instead notice the
broken hearts and lives around me. I
need to be willing to realize that all my pursuit of doing everything just
right over the years, while successful in terms of what our culture would say,
has never brought me joy. The only thing
that has brought me joy has been flying in the face of all the things in this
crazy culture of ours that push me to always get more stuff, buy more stuff,
achieve higher goals, make everyone happy, rise in the corporate ladder, have
more positions, have more tasks and do them the best, and instead choosing to
grasp these things as lightly as possible, choosing to notice
all the in between people and things that reorient my life to what life is
really about. As someone said, "It
is the journey of life that makes it beautiful, not the destination" -
which i would change slightly to "It is the joys of the journey of life
that take us to a different, more wonderful destination." The more i notice the amazingness of the world around me and the wonder of the
people (and their brokenness) around me, the more life opens up and becomes
wonderful and joyful and full of purpose and meaning and even awe. The more i recognize the beauty of the God
who made it all and who loves us so much and invite Him into the moments of my
day, asking Him to be in the moments and help me to not to lose His
perspective. The more i realize that i
will never be able to make myself happy and neither will my wife or kids or
family or friends, only God can take all the things that already exist in my
world and help me see them in a new way that will bring deep joy to my
life. The more i do all these things,
the landscape of my day looks amazing, full of promise. No longer do i feel a slave to my
compulsions. I am free. There is More than more - and that is a
beautiful thing!
If you
are sick and tired of the usual mores of our world, feel trapped by your schedule
and just have lost your joy. You might
consider joining us Thursday night, the 5th of April, at McAllister
Recreation Center Schuyler Ave , Lafayette
No comments:
Post a Comment