Oct 19, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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A few years ago, I spoke about trusting God, even when a season feels like a straitjacket. Those words resonated with a lot of people. I suppose for everybody at some point life feels that way — you’re in a season that has you sitting still, your race has you feeling like you’re swimming laps, and it’s often the case that the best you can do is just trust “it ain’t forever” and keep on keepin’ on. There are often great things happening under the surface, and the restraint we feel is often part of a bigger process, whether we’re aware of it or not.
But part of the process of making it through one of those seasons is knowing when the season is done. And sometimes that’s easy to see — you get fired from the job you hated, or you get the promotion you’ve been praying for that will reduce financial stress. The sign changes and the speed limit is no longer 25. Other times, like the butterfly, you are a part of the process of wiggling your way out of the chrysalis that has held you in place while the change was taking place.
So how do you know when it’s time to wiggle?
2 Kings 7 tells this fantastic story that is almost Shakespearean humor to me. Syrians laid siege on the city of Samaria and people were quite literally starving to death. In those days, lepers were banished to live outside the city because people didn’t want to touch them, for fear of being “made unclean.” {Long explanation for that, let’s save it for another day.}
So these four lepers were living outside the city, and when times are tough and people don’t have food for themselves, it’s pretty likely these dudes were on the verge of extinction.
Until they came up with a plan.
“Muchachos,” they said to one another, “why are we just sitting here waiting to die? Obviously, if we go into the city, since there’s no food in the city, we’ll die. And clearly, if we just stay sitting right here, we’re gonna die. So why don’t we head over to the Syrian camp and surrender to them? If they keep us alive, well then sweet potatoes. But if they kill us, what’s the difference, right?”
What these dudes didn’t know was that the Lord had been at work while they were busy reasoning things out. He’d caused the Syrians to hear the sound of a big army coming, and they thought the Samarians had hired some folks to come fight on their behalf.
“The Egyptians and the Hittites are coming to lay the smack down!” they’d shouted to one another. And they took off running scared, leaving all their stuff right there in the camp, shedding layers of clothing so they could run faster.
When those lepers showed up in the camp, it was a ghost town. So {this is the part I really love picturing in my mind} they start raiding the camp from tent to tent. Check it out, guys, there’s food over here! Bro, check out this rocking new garment I just found! I’m gonna go bury this booty in the ground and come back for more! Whoo-hoo! Who’s thirsty???
Eventually they think to themselves, Dudes, we are being totally not cool. The people in the city are about to keel over starving because they think this army is still here. We better go tell them the good news before we get in trouble for being selfish punks.
So these four lepers, who nobody expected anything from, told the city the good news, and in a way, they kind of saved the day. The king sent some of his men to go check out their story and make sure it was true, and then people went out and plundered the tents — the siege was finished and the famine was, too.
Now what if those guys had just decided to stick it out and hope for the best? What if they didn’t decide to get up and at least attempt to change their fate? The time was right for them to make a move.
Call it grace, they made their move, and many people benefited from that decision.
Another story is told*, about these prisoners of war, being held hostage, imprisoned for months. Who knows how badly they’d been treated, what atrocities they’d suffered through in this dark corner of the world.
Some Navy SEALS arrived to rescue them. They flew in by helicopter, stormed the compound and found their way to the room where the hostages were being held. In this filthy, dark room, there these hostages sat, curled up in a corner, terrified.
The SEALS entered, stood at the door, and called to them. “We’re Americans, c’mon, let’s go! Follow us, we’re gonna get you out of here!” But the hostages wouldn’t follow them. They hid their eyes, faces on the floor, fearful, not believing this was real, not believing these rescuers were really Americans who’d come to save them.
There were too many hostages for the SEALS to carry out, and for a moment they didn’t know what to do. Finally one of the SEALS had an idea. He put down his weapon, took off his helmet, and curled up tightly next to the other hostages on the floor, so close that his body was touching some of theirs. He softened the look on his face and put his arms around them. {He did what none of the prison guards would’ve done — do you see the beautiful redemption in this?}
He stayed there for a little while until some of them finally looked at him, and then whispered that they were Americans, there to rescue them. Will you follow us? he asked.
He stood to his feet, and one by one the hostages did the same, eventually every one of them was willing to go. At the end they were safely aboard an aircraft carrier, free from the horrible place where they’d been held captive for so long.
Like the lepers, they had to get up to get free.
You’ve heard the saying that sometimes we stare so long at the door that’s closed we don’t see the open window. And a season can be a closed door, or a period of time where you feel held captive by the circumstances of life.
But one of God’s first promises after the Earth was flooded was about seasons:
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease.” {Gen. 8:22}
We can be certain of the fact that seasons will always change. There will be a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal, {is turn turn turn in the back of your head now?}
If you are swimming a race where you feel like you’ve been stuck doing laps in the same pool for way too long, you can be certain, from the very mouth of God, that no season is going to last forever.
Maybe the straitjacket that’s holding you is still tightly around you, cinched and closed; maybe the process isn’t over, maybe the chrysalis isn’t complete. But be careful to stay alert and mindful: the strings may have already been loosened, the door may already be unlocked.
So be mindful, be on the lookout, and be ready to face your fears. Recognize that you might have to get up to get out of what’s holding you. It’s hard to believe, but sometimes, the only thing holding you in the season you’re in is you.
It may be a good time to put your head down and keep swimming, but it could be the right time to lift your head above the water and look around. May the Holy Spirit meet you with the wisdom to know when it’s time to get up.
xCC
*I’ve adapted the true story above from the book Blue Like Jazz. (Thank you, Don Miller, for sharing it!)
Oct 18, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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Hi there, my fellow consumer! Let’s talk a bit about worth and value today, shall we?
We are a society that is quick to put a price tag on something, aren’t we? We debate whether its ‘worth it’ to have someone else cut your grass, whether the sale on pork tenderloin is really a good price, why certain things are ‘worth it’ because our time is valuable. It seems there are very few things that don’t have a price tag anymore.
Someone recently spoke to me about the videography services our photography business recently began offering. She was very complimentary about our most recent wedding film – you should totally follow this link and watch it because it’s great – and it was nice to hear the good feedback. But, she has a daughter getting married soon and she was very disappointed that the prices “were so expensive.”
I was a little bit caught off guard and didn’t know how to respond, so I tried to explain how hard the two guys that make up our videography team work. Wedding days are usually something to the tune of twelve hours of working with very few (if any) moments to break, and this doesn’t include travel time.
The real work happens after the wedding day, though. Because there are two different camera guys each running a camera at key moments, and sometimes a third camera on a tripod somewhere, they have hours upon hours upon hours of footage to go through and trim down to our documentary edit, and even further trim down to the little wedding films we work together to create. How much is some 200-odd hours of work worth?
Then there are the cameras and (heaps of) other equipment associated with capturing the footage. The most recent purchase of our lead videographer was a camera that cost more than either of the cars that the Hubs and I drive. The image quality and performance of the camera is phenomenal, like, take-videos-in-nearly-dark-situations-phenomenal but is it that what makes it worth it?
A couple years ago, I had the privilege of building websites for a couple of wonderful ladies who are both artists. They each had very different styles, although they both primarily work in watercolors. I loved looking at the beautiful paintings they created, and I often wondered how they ever managed to put a price tag on their work. One of the ladies once told me about a particular piece that she so dearly loved that she would never, ever sell it. It was award-winning, and absolutely beautiful. Some of her paintings had a worth that she could put a price tag on, but this one was too important — to her, it was priceless.
Months ago, we sat across a table from a wonderful couple that was thinking of hiring us to capture photography on their wedding day. We enjoyed our conversation, talking about how we “do” weddings and what’s involved behind the scenes, the things that we include and where our hearts are with regard to serving our clients.
They seriously surprised us by discussing our price and saying, “We’ve looked around at a lot of different photographers and we were really surprised that you don’t charge more. Your talent is just as good as, if not better than [another photography team based in North Carolina] but their price is like $1,000 more than yours. We really feel like we’re getting value from you guys — we couldn’t believe your price.”
That conversation was certainly a shot in the arm for a couple who are praying to consistently book photography sessions and weddings, in order to run a successful business and provide for our family. But here’s the thing I’m learning, based on all these experiences:
YOU CANNOT ALLOW THE WORLD TO TELL YOU YOUR WORTH.
Sure, we can try our best to put a price tag on the goods and services we offer the world as our work. We might be in a place where someone else is telling us how much per hour we’re worth and we’re just praying they’ll see us working hard and decide we’re worth a little bit more.
I recently finished settling the first of three estates I’ve been working through for the past year and half — it’s quite a story, but let’s save it for another day. To finally meet with the Clerk of Court and close the estate, a lot of paperwork is required, and it seems to all boil down to a basic number — the net worth. What were the liabilities this great aunt of mine left at the time of her passing? What were her assets? What is the government’s share of those funds? What (if anything) is going to be dispersed among the survivors.
Is that really what we’re worth?
Friends, our intrinsic value as human beings has never and will never be linked to a number that is based on what we might have earned in our lifetime.
To the Lord, we are the painting that He would never, ever in a million years sell.
The world is quick to tell us about ways to become more valuable to the people around us, sometimes to tell us that we’re worth more, other times that we’re worthless.
Perhaps not everyone will see what you do as valuable, but you need to know that that is not an indication of the value of who you are.
If God saw us, the people He created, as so valuable He was willing to send His only Son to live and die and pave the way for our reconciliation, what does that say about how valuable we are? How priceless and precious we are to God?
And why did He do it? Because He so loved the world.
As you swim the race of your life, the world might try to put a price tag on what you do. And you might have to figure out how much what you do is worth.
But the important thing to remember is that the car you drive, the home you live in, the clothes you wear, that final figure at the end of it all — none of it has any bearing on the value of who you are.
You are loved by the God of the universe and He sees you as so intrinsically valuable, He wouldn’t give you up, even when it cost the life of His Son.
Let that thought sink in for a moment.
You are rare and precious and loved by God. And the people around you are, too.
How does deeply believing these truths affect the way you swim your race?
If you really believe them, it changes everything.
xCC
Oct 17, 2014 | 31 Days, The Parenthood
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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An opening of the honesty box at the expense of seeming weird is probably pretty well overdue in this series. You might already think I’m an odd cookie, but perhaps I can help you out and let you know for sure.
Kidding. I guess.
So, a certain little holiday is just around the corner here in North America, which is also celebrated in some other parts of the world. And it is my least favorite holiday, ever. I REALLY don’t enjoy diverting my children’s eyes from all the blood and gore lining the aisles of some of the stores we visit. And on a road trip earlier this month, there were awful, awful images on billboards — bloody, gory, scary people staring right off the road into the car, inviting people to visit some corn field where they could get so scared they might wet their pants.
Fortunately the kiddos were distracted and we kept on truckin’.
In our neighborhood, however, there’s a little tradition of dressing up, the families getting together to share a meal, and the kids walking around the neighborhood together, to collect their beloved candy.
I love love love getting to know my neighbors better and getting to spend time with them so we are totally keen to jump in again this year. Even though it is my least favorite holiday.
The boys have been chatting about what they’d like to dress up as, pretty much since last year, and they came to the conclusion that they wanted to be the Wild Kratts. {Two brothers, one with blonde hair, one with brown, who travel the world on creature adventures… it is very fitting for our little guys.}
So the Hubs and I finally chatted a bit about costumes last night. And I found myself strangely torn… we’re getting to the weird spot, so bare with me.
As we went to bed last night, I was praying and talking to the Lord about the fact that my children are always asking me for things, and it kind of weighs me down, and I wondered if, since the Lord’s children are always asking Him for things, does it weigh Him down, too? Like, does He ever long for, and desire intimate relationship with His children that is not based on the exchange of goods and services?
And then, thinking about what our children want versus what they need, and the boundaries we set, (but how do we find them?), I asked:
How do I find a balance — world hunger vs. Halloween costumes? How do I practically live this out?
And I realized that one issue was framing a lot of things for me. Maybe it seems weird, but it is what it is, and maybe it’s because I have seen what I’ve seen and been where I’ve been, but when I spend money on non-necessities here, I constantly think about the non-negotiables someone else is missing somewhere else.
So I try my best to live frugally and give generously, but I think there’s an underlying layer of guilt that just frames everything to do with finances. Because we have what we have, and while by American standards it might not seem like much, I know better. I’ve seen.
I asked this question and sat still, and took a breath, and then opened my Bible. I just so happened to come to a passage of Scripture, which was the next one for me to read on my reading plan, that took my breath away with the answer.
In Matthew 26, this woman anoints Jesus with oil from her alabaster jar. The oil in that jar was very costly, like a years’ wages some scholars imagine, and the disciples were indignant about it. “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.”
But when Jesus was aware of what was going on in their hearts, this was His reply: “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”
Two very important lessons were contained in this passage for me last night.
First, Jesus explained that We will always have the poor… Now that doesn’t mean we give up on the poor, give up on making a difference with regard to the poverty we see in the world around us. We are specifically instructed to care for the poor, and Jesus went so far as to explain to John, when asked if He was the Messiah, that, among other signs that He was the One (the blind see, the deaf hear…) He mentioned that The poor have the gospel preached to them. Caring for the poor is close to the heart of God.
However, the fact that there are poor people in the world cannot define all of our actions.
Solving the problem of poverty cannot be the cause that gets us out of bed in the morning. Nor can the environment, not can the AIDS epidemic, orphans or politics.
This is where the question comes in: What or Who Are You Swimming For?
A few months ago, I shared a post here about cloth diapering. I’d been at it for well over a year, and, at the core, it was just something I felt convicted to do for the sake of the environment and to be financially thrifty. I felt a tug about it and jumped in.
Shortly after I wrote that post, I got a sense that the Lord was telling me to take a break from cloth diapering. The Hubs also suggested that we take a break.
I didn’t want to take a break. But finally, it seemed clear that that was the Lord’s direction, so I did.
Just a few days later, the Belle came down with an awful stomach bug. While I’ll spare you the details, I will just simply explain that I was very grateful I’d listened to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and obeyed God. She was wearing disposables… glory, hallelujah!
This is the second important lesson from Matthew 26: Caring for the poor is a high calling, but following Jesus is a higher calling. Every single conviction that God has ever or will ever place on our hearts has to remain secondary to the call to love and follow Christ. Let’s put it this way:
Every conviction has to have Christ at the Center or it will be elevated above Christ in the end.
I sometimes resist the leading of the Spirit to cling to the comfort of an old conviction.
We’ve come back to Hebrews 12 repeatedly throughout this series, and guess what? this is a very appropriate moment to do so again:
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Where do we fix our eyes as we swim the race of our lives?
Only always ever on Jesus.
We might all be surprised to realize that there are things we are clinging to in the Name of Christ, that might actually be distracting us from truly following Christ, listening to His Spirit, and daily submitting to His will.
He has to be the one that we’re swimming for — every cause, every conviction, every care has to come in second. What freedom we can find when we simply fix our eyes on Jesus!!
I’m grateful that this moment has reframed a lot of life for me. How do we decide how best to swim forward with our race?
Thank goodness it’s simple, because I’m not hungry for making things complicated. We keep on looking at Jesus.
Swim well today, friends.
xCC
Oct 16, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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It was about a half a year ago, when I was processing it in my own soul, and writing words about it right here on this little site. And these words came to me, came through me, and simultaneously stood still in my soul. It’d been a year since my Dad went into a hospital and breathed his last breaths, and I was reflecting on the anniversary, what had happened in the year since his passing, how God had helped me through. I commented:
These 365 days have been unexpectedly full. Grace to grace and strength to strength, joy to joy. Hard times, sometimes yes, but still — I am learning to see the gifts, and thereby learning to better see the Giver. {Full post here.}
Look for the gifts and truly see them, and you’ll better see the Giver.
Of all the things that have carried me through the grief, and helped me to keep swimming, I think thankfulness has had the most powerful results.
When the whisper of the enemy says Look what God took, my soul has boldly replied, But look what He gives.
At the time of that loss I had a four-month-old baby girl to care for. Our default mentality might be to say, “What a tough liability at a difficult time” but no, no — she was an incredible asset. Her joy, her life, her giggles and the promise and hope for her future, all these things combined to create this daily reminder of God’s goodness.
He saw what was coming, and He gave me a gift to help me get through it.
In that season I began counting gifts. I re-read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, and let her words remind me that there is always room to give thanks. Always reason to give thanks. {And let me pause here to say if there is only one book you can read for the rest of this year or the rest of your life, make it One Thousand Gifts
. It is such wisdom on living your one life well.}
When I didn’t take the time to write it down, I wrote it in my heart. I saw a leaf caught in a web, floating and dancing in the air and gave thanks. I saw my boys treat each other kindly and gave thanks.
Perhaps human nature isn’t always so grateful. Do we often default to complaining? Finding fault? Forgetting thankfulness? Do we tend to complain instead?
Is that perhaps why a Thanksgiving offering was so central to the offering system?
We cannot rightly see our lives but through the eyes of thankfulness — and yet it is so hard for us to find our way there, to put on those lenses.
I did well at giving thanks for a season, but when life got busier, and there were fewer margins, I promptly returned to my default state of more-often-discontent.
How do we overcome our default state of discontentment?
How do we swim this one race really well — and enjoy the swim at the same time?
We give thanks.
Not just for the food we eat, but also for the air we breathe. Not just for a home to live in, but also for the people and the gifts inside. Not just for a job but for your job, the place where the Lord has you, where you whisper trust that even if this isn’t the dream, it could very well be postponement for the best to become possible.
In a world where 1 in 7 people worldwide do not have enough food to sustain them, and approximately 25,000 people die every day due to hunger-related causes {See The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns for more…} oh my goodness, but we are privileged to have food to eat. In the top ten percent if there are more than five shirts in our closets.
Could we create for ourselves a daily reminder of our privileges?
Could we build into our lives a consistent pattern of giving thanks, day after day? Not just for the food and clothes, but for more and more the many gifts?
Do you want to enjoy your swim, wherever you are in the race?
Look for gifts and give thanks.
We’re instructed:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. {Ps. 100:4}
A thankful heart can pave the way for a move of God.
When you begin to see just how many gifts there are to be thankful for in the every day, you’ll begin to see the Giver like never before.
xCC
Oct 15, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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Some of you (maybe three of you…) might remember the days when I was writing With Love, From Here, and here was South Africa. If so, you might remember a post I wrote way back then about my Genesis making an Exodus… when a section of my Bible quite literally came out at the seams. I wrote Thomas Nelson Publishers to tell them about their wonderful Bible I’d loved so dearly and to see if they might be willing to send a new one to a missionary on a tight budget. A new one arrived, halfway round the world, before I could say supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious. And I can say that very quickly.
Thanks again, Thomas Nelson… still enjoying the new Women’s Study Bible!
My biggest sorrow in moving on to a new Bible (although I still have the old one) was that I was losing the margins. The New King James Version of the Bible is going to say the same thing, whichever NKJV Bible you pick up. But that first one had loads of glorious space in the margins that I absolutely loved. When I took notes on something in the Scriptures that I wanted to remember to go back to, I had a little system to indicate which journal the notes were in, and the date, so that I’d be able to go back to find them. I had loads of thoughts and revelations and connections between Scriptures jotted right there in those big, wide margins. I loved coming across a Scripture that the Lord had led me to before, and remembering His faithfulness at that point in my life, giving thanks for what He had done again.
Those big, wide margins were like a blank slate, inviting me to dive in and make the Word my own.
In some ways, life is like those margins. Some of the best things happen in the spaces where we’re not crammed into doing and going and and and… we’re just being.
Some of the most precious moments I’ve had with my children have happened in the margins, when I slowed down and remembered that Life is Not an Emergency and made room.
The margins are often what people who love to create crave — a space to explore something new, to soak in the creativity of others as a spark to inspire their own, or to learn and practice and improve their craft.
If you’re married, you may have recognized the pattern that love usually struggles to blossom unless there are margins, but where there is time, when there is space, love can thrive.
Yesterday, I had a few moments to watch the clouds go by outside the window, and I thought to myself, Gosh, when is the last time I watched the clouds?
So I’ve got a little challenge for you today, and I’m intentionally keeping this brief to (hopefully) make this a possibility.
Ask yourself this question for me: In this race I’m swimming, do I have any margins?
Do you wake up at the last minute possible and begin your day rushing to the shower, shoveling in breakfast, and scurrying out the door?
Do you fill your evenings with entertainment, never switching it off for a moment to just be quiet, to talk with someone in the room (or on the phone), to breathe and be still?
Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth! {Ps. 46:10}
Is your schedule like a Chinese puzzle or a military command center? Are there just SO many activities there is no time for your family to collectively play, be still and enjoy one another’s company?
Hopefully you’ve said no to all of these questions!
But our modern ways nudge me to imagine that almost all of us are cramming so much in that there’s no room for those beautiful margins to serve us as well as they could if we built them. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is how it creates so many margins for our family — we don’t have to rush to be somewhere so early each day or have a short space of time to accomplish so many things before bedtime. But there is a temptation to find other things to fill our schedule with, and I sometimes forget that some of the most important learning happens in the margins.
How can you change this for yourself? Getting up a bit earlier (and by necessity going to bed a little earlier?) Turning off the TV and starting a conversation instead? Learning that sometimes saying no leads to a better yes?
You have a race to swim every day, friends. It’s a good idea to take some time to make sure you’re not turning this long distance swim into a daily sprint. Give yourself room to breathe, to look at clouds, to be creative, to feel grass between your toes, to be still and think about the glorious goodness of your Creator.
Pretty soon you might find those margins brimming with life you are so glad you took the time to live.
Swim well, today, friends.
xCC
Oct 14, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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There’s an interesting personality difference between the Hubs and myself, and it creates good conversations, and I suppose sometimes I teensy bit of conflict. But it’s very well described based on our swimming careers. You might be able to guess it — I think I’ve mentioned it before.
HH is a careful, calculating distance swimmer. He can pace himself well, bring strategy to bear on a situation, and generally likes to take his time and have a plan in mind before diving in.
I. am. a. Sprinter.
I had to use periods just to slow that sentence down. I get impatient in strategy sessions because I’m ready to get out there and do the thing that needs doing. I don’t tend to always pace myself particularly well — I just all-out go for it until I have to stop. So when it comes to completing something, I generally find that 10% inspiration and try to make it work for me about 90% of the time. If I don’t feel inspired, I have a hard time getting it done. And if it’s hard work and it doesn’t have to be done, the good Lord knows I will procrastinate that hard work I’m not inspired to do until it either becomes absolutely necessary or becomes a missed opportunity.
While these personality differences sometimes create challenges for us as a couple and as a team, I think just realizing that we are different has helped us to make it through the moments where our “pacing differences” put us at odds with each other.
Now I might like to proclaim my bent toward being a sprinter an asset, or even an endearing personality flaw, but the truth is, it’s downright problematic sometimes. Here’s why:
If it ain’t easy, I don’t want to do it.
And sometimes,
If it ain’t easy, and I don’t want to do it, I like to assume the Lord doesn’t want me to, either.
Now, we’re getting to the second act of this Shakespearean comedy — the conflict. (Or is this play a tragedy…?) One of my dreams is to write more than just blog posts. I dream about writing books that will encourage and challenge and inspire. I dream about speaking in front of large groups and doing the same thing.
But unless I’m mistaken, publishing contracts don’t fall from the clouds.
So there is a conflict afoot, and perhaps you can see it! I’m a Sprinter. Consistently working on a project that takes longer than a blog post is not always my forté. In fact, I find it awfully challenging, when life is full of so many other things to do!
I’ve mentioned before, I think, how much I’ve been learning since I started homeschooling the Bear. Homeschooling certainly isn’t an overnight gig, and it’s certainly not in keeping with a Sprinter’s personality.
But I’ve discovered the truth of this little whisper from Isaiah 28:10:
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.
Any grand project, any great symphony, any fantastic piece of literature was created one brick, one note, one word at a time.
Slowly and deliberately accomplishing a year of homeschool happens one school day at a time, one hour at a time, one subject at a time.
Now I know I’m not the only dreamer in the crowd, so let me bring this discussion to bear on where you might be in your journey.
Do you ever conveniently assume that because something is a challenge, it’s not the will of the Lord? Perhaps you’re dreaming about furthering your education, getting yourself into better shape, learning a new instrument or skill, or writing and singing music for thousands of people to enjoy. But once you’ve started the first lap of this race, do you start to putter out?
Here’s an incredible truth worth leaning into:
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. {Eph. 3:20-21}
What am I saying here? God is able to do exceedingly abundantly — some translations say immeasurably more (NIV) or superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think (AMP) — according to our own willingness to let Him work in and through us.
But that last little piece of the puzzle is an important one — remember, we were created with the precious gift of free will — and think this through with the Amplified version: Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able … Paul is saying glory to the God who is able to exceed our every expectation abundantly, but what He does through and for and regarding us is somehow closely knit to what we allow Him to do in us.
Are we well into the lofty heights of the Fourth Act of the play? Let me try to pull this thing together with the denouement — the resolution, if you will.
You may feel well settled into what you might call an ordinary life but I want to encourage you that God is able to do something extraordinary through you. If you are willing to overcome the fear of failure or of making a mistake, and if you are willing to get it settled right down deep in your heart that anything worth doing is not going to be easy, and that something presenting you with a challenge doesn’t mean it’s not of the Lord, why then, by Jove, you’ve got it. As you allow God to work in and through you, so you will find that He is indeed able to do exceedingly abundantly more than you ever imagined, with your life — no matter what you are called to do.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke about this concept to a group of students at a junior high school, just six months before his assassination:
And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Handel or Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
The race is not always given to the swift. The battle is not always won by the strong. The greatest achievements of your life will be those that you consistently made effort toward. You were willing to swim the laps and acknowledge that it wasn’t a Sprint that would get you there. You were willing to go the distance, swimming your own race.
For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
Go for it, today friends. And then, go for it again tomorrow…
xCC
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